I remember the last time
this happened. Will we learn
how to be patient, or
anxious,
scry all manner of surfaces,
the eye flickering upon
multiple screens flickering
their parade of facts
and opinions spinning
across time; what
history has to tell us
or what we might tell
history to tell us we are
reasonably unsure or
unreasonably sure,
and will we plunge blindly
into our certainties, all
huff and puff and plunder?
Will we empty the future,
remove the furniture
from all the rooms
we used to fill
with our bodies,
the dishes and the cutlery,
household goods, clothes?
Will we be left naked
and huddled in the square?
Will we build memorials
for the ones we lost,
invent new ceremonies
to commemorate the dead
and assuage our shame?
Will it matter?
There will be choices
of erasures.
We will wipe
our faces clean.
We will sit in silence,
Made dumb by our grief,
undone by our pride,
or someone else’s.
We will be told that
history teaches us
nothing,
or maybe history teaches us
how to resist.
If only we knew where to
look.
If only we had raised our
voice.
If only we had looked up
from our screens
and seen each other,
and bound ourselves
to human need,
and let our hearts be moved,
until we moved.
