Pages Dispersed in the Wind

History flows,

Comes and then goes,

Pages dispersed in the wind,

Fluttering, flimsy, ascending the sky,

The writing exposed to the sun’s blazing eye

And fading as morning clouds thinned.

 

Diaries close,

Thinking one knows

Destiny’s every reply.

Sketchbooks keep capturing life’s present trial,

But rainwater runs over memories while

The ink’s not had time yet to dry.

 

Somebody sows

Seeds where what grows

Soaks up what falls from the sky,

And someone has saved a page from the wind,

A guide, enshrined on the wall where it’s pinned,

To roots we forget and deny.

 

 

 

This poem was inspired by the front cover of a book I started reading last week - Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury. The poem doesn't really relate to the actual content of the book. For some reason, the picture led me to think about how history can be difficult to record accurately - and the farther removed we are from events, the more they, or at least our collective memories of them, can become distorted. Of course, there's also the question of who's writing the history, and what perspective they have. In any case, this poem's about that difficulty, and also about the importance of trying to remember and record, because those roots may help us to better understand things that are happening now - the fruit that time has borne - and how to move forward into the future.