HISTORY

(for Paul Watson)

What is the past the sage asked the student?
Does it fade like mist in the glaring sun?
Is it scrawled in sand as the tide turns?
Is it a perfectly woven basket
preserved in a mud slide until needed?
Is it the hunched brown woman with bright eyes?
Her cragged face is the face of Mother Earth.
Do you wear time as a stink albatross
Rotting with your sins and redemptions.
Is age the red rose you planted last year
Lush and fragrant with your tribute of love

Will your words be sung by your grandchildren
or be born as a curse mumbling in the dark?