The Historians

It is time to consult my friends
the historians who still believe
in research and a tapestry of fact
woven on the loom of deliberation
and hypotheticals tested
against what are perceived
to be outcomes. It is time
to remember the ones
who never abandoned
the way to care
for the dead the ones
who said not only my dead
and not only the official dead
matter amidst all the matter.

What’s the matter
what’s the matter
ask the townspeople
of their neighbour Harry
a rich man hexed
into perpetual cold
his teeth ever chattering
since he ambushed a poor woman
gathering kindling
from his woodpile
and she cursed him. Call it
stealing call it pilfering
call it a regime
of property a spell
an old cold woman
can counter
with a spell her chill
transferred forever
to him in a poem
What is a word worth
What is worth a word
What is a gill
but something to breathe through
what is a ghyll
but a stream
to move the smallest bones
of your inner ear along
Old stones in certain light
are moving call it
erosion call it a time lapse
explosion only the longest lived
mechanism could record
old cold ever warming stone.
No mere stenographers
no chroniclers
the sad historians are trying
to make sense of things
through the convolutions
of their brains.
They were made
as sure as anyone
they do not aspire
my friends the historians
to objectivity they sing sometimes
of the Age of Enlightenment
which has given us
what so much so much
so much is streaming
through our open mouths