Hugh Hazelton: and so it's happened

and so it’s happened

the rumours and news were erupting

as we took off from Jakarta for Mexico City

no one thought it possible

we were six or seven hours out over the Pacific

when the pilot informed us

we never saw a trail of a missile or flash of a laser

the cries and shrieks and panic in the plane have died down

about twenty passengers were forcibly sedated or tied to their seats

and we’re all somehow accepting that it’s over

the wailing and keening go on but are more muffled now

though every once in a while there’s a scream

the pilot said that North America has probably been obliterated

and that the continent including Mexico has been sealed off

South America wasn’t attacked as badly but communications are dead

and there’s no hope of landing there

Australia was hit because of US bases

all mainland radio and computer connections are gone

so he’s changed course and is flying by map and compass

down to Easter Island, where he hopes we can land

if not he’ll scuttle the plane in the sea

like the submarine sailing off at the end of On the Beach

to sink itself far away in unknown waters

how that terrified me when I was a child

as I asked my parents How could that happen?

no one much cares now, whimpering and sobbing

I know there’s an American satellite aiming station there —

it must have been a laser target —

but so few planes land there that the runway

might be unhit and free unless they’ve barricaded it

on the very chance that planes like ours will land there

just a tiny spot we might survive on

for a while

until the poisons get to us

how odd the plane can still function for ten more hours

pressurized and comfortable, with our movie screens still working

until the fuel runs out

and how strange to think of heading for Easter Island

the Kon-Tiki land of Thor Heyerdahl that I always wanted to visit

and find out if their ancestors had also come from Peru

Rapa Nui, the Navel of the World,

though everyone’s home is the Navel of the World

at the Navel was I nourished and to the Navel I will return

Thanatogenesis

those moai have been staring inland for centuries

their backs to the infinite sea

and the volcanic empty eyes

of the lonely seven who gaze out at the horizon

waiting for us to arrive for this to happen

wasn’t there a story by a Chilean friend or someone I once heard

about a military plane flying out from Valparaíso after the coup

with prisoners on board

who were told they were being taken to Easter Island

looking out the windows at the sunlight over the Pacific

with their hands and feet tied but their eyes not blindfolded

because what did it matter

hoping their captors weren’t lying but knowing they were

and that the plane would finally slow and bank, the cargo door would be pulled open

and they’d be pushed out into that same sunlit air

over the endless sea

Easter Island

where the trees were cut down the animals killed the ecology collapsed

and when there was no more wood

the Polynesians forgot how to build their trimarans to go back or on to anywhere

or even fish offshore

and were stuck forever

micro-civilizations rising and falling

until minuscule civil wars over what was left broke out between clans and families

hiding in caves until the population had almost died out

and then the slave ships arrived

the island that survived its own miniature apocalypse

now our last place of refuge

Easter Island

place of myth

and resurrection

the perfect romantic place for us to wither and die

roll the stone away and let us enter

but like those prisoners on the military plane

I know you won’t

because you won’t want more people landing

refugees from a dying planet

strangers once again

eating your precious food

when we fly in low with our wheels down

you’ll surely have blockaded your solitary runway

and we’ll be forced to bank over your volcanic loneliness

and crash into the Southern Sea

with that same sunlight glimmering

over fingers of wind rippling the surface

through wisps of cloud

in the blue depth

Hugh Hazelton is a writer and translator who lives in Montreal. His fourth book of poetry, Antimatter, was reprinted with CD by Broken Jaw Press in 2010; a Spanish version came out with Split Quotation/La Cita Trunca in 2009. He performs his poems in several languages and believes that poetry should bite, caress, stroke, laugh at, confront, lament, name, imagine, envision, remember, invoke, oppose, and reflect.