Poetry
Monuments of the Age
A poem about the transition from page to screen
I — the library
massed wisdom in imperial folly
Eden of lost lessons
stone anomaly
brocade maps of
empire wrought
in the soft light of
word and thought
stones cursed to
endure
stood a hundred years
more
empires won, lost
worlds grown old
stripped, desiccated futures
foretold
epochs of children
crawling on all fours
burnished stones with
tiny hands, toes
summer picnics, hide-and-seek,
stolen kisses, day dreams,
carved ciphers on
wounded walls
trapped echoes in
silent halls
beckoning corners
bound and lined
legends of thought
life of mind
II — “all that is solid melts into air”
then came
the last men
stones quarried, melted
became
liquid spires
of abstract empires
glassy snakes
on ocean beds
laid to forget
no more remembering
mere zeroes and ones
recording everything
no more trampling
of rose-petaled feet
no more refuge
for the heart clamoring
no more continents
for the mind searching
elemental dust
the hand on the page
and the muses weep
and the muses rage
…
monuments of the age
Thank you for reading!
Thank you to the editors of Scrittura Marilyn J Wolf Viraji Ogodapola Samantha Lazar Zay Pareltheon and all you readers and writers!
