Mekana

On why I love history

Thoughts | May 7, 2010

Yesterday’s life,
shriveled, dust accumulating
     over
neglect, in tomes in towers of
repositories.

Passé publications leaving
dust all
     over
your fingers as you struggle
to find out why these
dates and times and names
of wars and regimes
     over
and people long dead
matter.

It’s all
     over,
like a beastly breakup
or an opportunity forgone.
We’re told not to think about
the past.

Why does it matter?

Venerable volumes in vaults
speak to you,
whisper your name,
disclose your origins.
If you open them,
     now,
the meaning of life itself
tumbles out.

Stories of sacrifice,
tales of talent,
chronicles of chivalry,
memoirs of mischief,
tragedies of truth.

When you study history,
you listen to a sage
storyteller’s warm voice
bring life to that which
no longer literally has any
     now.

Events reincarnated
identify the particles of
476 and 1776 and 1942
present in you.

You argue your case about
meaning, making meaning, making
the mysteries of yesterday
the unraveled histories of today,
putting pencil to paper
     now.