RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS
The Dissolving Past
Whenever anybody says
That’s in the past
Understand that the past
Does not dissolve
Like ice cream on a summer day
The past remains
Like a cloud that lingers
Like a lover’s face
Like a song that moves you
Like saving grace
Whenever anybody says
The past does not concern me
Be assured the past concerns us all
The past holds onto you
Like tar to feathers
Like Custer’s Last Stand
Like a trauma of the psyche
Like the plane that did not land
Whenever anybody says
Let’s not talk about the past
Speak of nothing else
Until the ghosts stand exposed
Until the stories are all told
Until the buried have names
Until the miseries unfold
And everything hidden
Becomes everything known
The past does not dissolve
Like the present it expands
It renews in a constant cycle
Of death and rebirth
When the past dissolves
(or is allowed to dissolve)
We are as dawdling infants
Stunted in our growth
Cursed to relive the same old
Tragedies again and again
The past is the present
Eternal and ubiquitous
Until we know and understand this
We know and understand nothing
To remember is to connect
The present with the past
With the hope of building
A better future
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