I'VE LEARNED TO PAUSE AT THE SOUND OF DOORBELLS

The first to go the morning after the raging fiery heat 
has ended the world, as we know it, will be the bells
their melted tongues scraped out by the offspring of
bell makers who cast them long ago in foundry fires 

coming in like a blowtorch, no longer revered as
saved by the bell, everywhere what is left after the
firestorm of the bronze, brass, copper bells beyond
repair will no longer lash out clanging one thing
ash blowing ash, smoke, haze meaning another 

large faced clocks will rust, crumble, crack
in unattended belfries, old-world orchestras
of hand-bells puzzled by fate will be struck 
silent one at a time, as too will leper’s bells
preceding their humans as they plow their
way seeking others like themselves

burning with the savage sizzle of a white-hot 
branding iron, bell towers will refuse to replace
unticking digital clocks, screeching their attempts 
at chiming, baked with the winds of torrid 
summer winds, emitting wrong hours causing
the rest of us to stop telling time altogether

little bells hanging from necks of oxen
goat bells, cow bells, those woven in shaggy 
manes of ponies and donkeys, schoolyard 
bells will stop calling students to classrooms
holy bells to prayer, even tinkling bells
in mechanical wind-up toys will cease

their silence, smothering the warning sounds
of a bell-eating virus, their loss of ringing
we will no longer hear or even feel as a 
dying vibration, yet knowing but not owning
the global destruction of bells breaking one
at a time until soundless, they no longer exist.

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Eileen Malone, author of two full length collections of poetry and one chapbook is a widely published prize-winning poet and fiction writer who has been featured in poetry journals and readings nationally and internationally. She grew up in the U.K. and Australia and now lives in the coastal fog at the edge of the San Francisco Bay Area.