We can make a home here.In these ruins.In this shattered civilizationfull of walking autopsieswhere every twinkle in the night skyis an Elon Musk satellite.Life can still thrive here.Even in the Anthropocene.Even in the middle of secular armageddon.There is still mossin the cracks of the parking lot.There are still pigeonsroosting in the rafters.We can make a nest here, too,out of the plastics and the packaging,out of the shell casingsand the trillions of chicken bones.We can rake it into a pileand lay listening to the ghostsof the extinct megafaunaand get haunted by the spiritsof the forests that used to be.It is good to breathe deeplyof the fumes of this wasteland.The air still crackleswith strange and crooked sorcery.The earth is still packed fullof winking Buddhasinside winking Buddhas.He wears a hazmat suit these days(he's not an idiot),but you can still see him winkingin the iridescent petrol puddles,and in the shopping cart saintson the wounded sidewalks,and even in the shark-eyed stareof the war pundits on Fox News.Did you know they've discovereda type of fungus in Chernobylwhich feeds on the radiation there?When I first learned this I fell to my kneesand wept tears of wonder and joy.The water poured from my seaweed headand washed cigarette buttsdown the gutter.We are swimming in an ocean of miracles.We are living on a giant cocoon.We have barely begunto scratch the surface of this world.Every moment is a leapinto the great Unknown.I kneel before the black mold in Chernobyl.An angel egg is beginning to hatch._______________Reading by Tim Foley.