POEM: ECHOES

Echoes

And with the turning, the turned come around

to look upon the burning hills,

set by dead hands in a furious ground,

set by silence and with missiles.

Might not those then come who will rightly gauge

this faintest echo of past times,

when grass once grew on the plains of Carthage,

and the world held to lesser crimes?

Though ages have passed since battles fought there,

history’s witness will bear no grudge,

yet we waken, still, with a darker care

of doom from a more ancient judge.

Not in waters born of long summer’s melt,

nor by dreams where fish course through air.

Not through lands once kept for the whitest pelt,

or when loud footsteps tread the stair.

It’s more the weathering away of things,

the abandoning of time’s rent,

like from the palsied hands of measured kings

coins dropped by thrones are never spent.

For now, epistles warn on moss-worn stone,

and prosy tracts, their chalky tombs.

And like triumphs once reaped the crowds of Rome,

we take our fall in harvest blooms.

I JUST READ THE LAST PARAGRAPH that I’d written about “thrones”, in the post “Quotes”: Aristotle and The History of Animals, and the image of a throne from a recent poem I’ve written came to mind. This one grew slowly, with the image of burning hills staying with me for some time. I think there were recent fires (2018) in the southern US. There was also the Trump-Kim insult war going on, and I’m reading about ancient Greece and Rome more, and listening to history podcasts, so the idea of historical cycles—not repetitions of past events and outcomes, but rather ‘echoes’ or rhymes, or similarities, if you will—came to mind. Carthage always fascinated me. Such a powerful city state, destroyed utterly by Rome in the second century B.C., its surrounding fields salted over as a final touch. (If true, that last little jab is a bit much, don’t you think?)

     I guess the long cycles of history, including the cycles of civilizations, is something we don't often reckon with. We're too busy in the now of things to see that our now has similarities to any number of 'nows' in the past. The tombs, the etched stone or clay tablets, the cracked roadbeds and crumbling temples, may be all that’s left of something that people once believed would last forever. I think in the poem there are elements of the anguish that is felt when we view the loss of such a civilization or way of life. As well, there are images describing the way it slips away—not all at once, but with the melting of ice, or by war and social decay or internecine violence, or the decrepitude of tired rulers. [I do like the image of, “...palsied hands of measured kings…”. And it’s nice to quote myself! Ed.] As well, the warning about "abandoning of time's rent" as the "darker care" we must be wary of, is strong and suggestive. 
That we have the ruins of so many civilizations all around us; that we study them and catalogue their histories, their rise and fall, surely this should give us pause?

     So have a drink, or brew a fresh pot of tea, or take your dog out for a walk. Greet your neighbours. Love your loved ones. Do the best you can for as long as you’re able. And live this day knowing that tomorrow, as it always does, brings change.

Cheers, Jake.

Contemplation? Or clam-digging? You decide.