—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento
THE STORY OF MANKIND FROM
EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY
—William Bronk
We are so set on making stories, asleep
even, only the mind moving, lying intent
to stroke whatever comes to it, awake
while the body sleeps, identifying sounds
with events, feelings with faces, picking out
from the day's debris whatever will make do.
Awake, our invention finds more room to move,
sets up itself in three dimensions as if
it were there, assigns us almost consistent roles
to hold from day to day, necessitates
a past we must have had, and a time to come
where, even now, the story begins to be true.
What may, in fact, go on, if indeed it does,
has nothing at all to take from the story we tell.
___________________
—Medusa
