The Waters at the End of Civilization

The waters at the end of civilization, called Yam Sof in Hebrew—
The sea of reeds, the sea of the end,
The falling waters of misery and saline stagnation gather here.
Because of the force of the barrier, the exiles are here
Day after day,
Of birth, of miscarriage, of resulting wreckage.
Weapons deposited become a sea of terror, a sea of blood.

They come together and are expelled
From each generation of civilization—
Discarded scraps, standing there like ghosts
In a sea of bones and blood.
Claws,
Their points deeply embedded in the reef,
Dense, strange strands of hair twist in the air.

In another form, they have enticed men
To the absolute end through delirious dreams.
For now, they just stare in silence
At a modern civilization shrouded in dust,
Even if they lose everything.

The spoken value, but the gestation most—
The power of the beginning could not erase them,
Could not dissolve them,
So that the hand could not be born nor die,
So that in people's eyes, they were revenge.