The Cataclysm: A Poem For Adam—By PJ
Roots Adam, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2025. Based on a reference photo by the wonderful Mimi Frank, a.k.a. Mimi Bikini.
Cataclysm: A Poem For Adam
PJ DeGenaro
Dear readers who’ve stuck with me all this time: I just want to be clear that these poems aren’t always about the members of U2, but in honor of them. So when I write, I consider the time of year, other things that are happening in the world, and what I know about the men themselves – which is only based on what they show to the public. Adam is a garden enthusiast, born in March. I shook his hand once, and he smiled at me from the stage that same night. He seems very kind. I associate him with the idea that spring is coming and the gardens are going to bloom – but not just yet. - PJ
The Cataclysm
You want an earth as gentle as yourself:
Soft spring meadows, grass like goose down
The fuzz on a peach, or an infant’s cheek
A coverlet of green to swaddle lambs and kits
Tender boughs to cradle the fledgling finch.
But you are a man of the soil, and
You know that all growth begins in rot:
That the delicate March grasses
Are underpinned by layers, strata, eons
Of violent upheavals; the jackboots of
Earthquakes, avalanches, cataclysms
Trampling the dead into paste.
Sometimes when the cataclysm comes
It feels like nothing more than a long, cold winter
Ice-crusted snow in the ditches, iron skies
And wind that strafes your uncovered skin
No meteor nor Vesuvius,
But only men with small minds
Who attack us at the top of every hour
With dull nail files and butter knives
To scrape away our joy.
Still, They can’t kill us all.
We are the ones who survived plague and blight
Uprisings, burnings, and centuries of war.
You understand the root systems under your land,
And you know the first snowdrops
Will always push their way up
Through the rib cages of the dead.