More of a monologue/ramble than a poem, but ah well. I scribbled it a few months back and just got round to typing it in.
History
In the past, I stood.
Today, I sit.
Tomorrow, perhaps I shall stand again.
I do not walk in eternity
Fort to move, to push, was never my call.
I sit, I stand, I talk,
I speak, write, talk and talk,
And hope that my words are caterpillars that can grow wings
And not just slugs, condemned to lumber and never see the world
I am, after all, a historian
Not a warrior, not a surgeon.
I observe and observe, in terror and fascination
Knowing not from whence man came
But trying to explain
I, master only of myself
No leader; no hero; no father.
But I cannot escape time.
I never would have let it escape me;
It only seems fair in the end
Voices cry out from battered pages
Dreams of gold-forged greatness wall my mind -
To help, oh to help
So how can I be what I know I am
When this world around me is not what I know it is
And I stand at last.
These battered pages will not record my failure.
Nor, though, though, will they tell of my sorrow.
Historian; heal thyself...