a descent into poetry insanity |
they say space and time are twisted together in a knot. I like to imagine that if we knew which thread to unravel, we could read scrolls from the Library of Alexandria or take tea with Amelia Earhart on the eve of her final voyage or wander the fields of Saratoga and Gettysburg and Waterloo and too many others to name, before they were plowed with blood and tears. But when I think of history, those mighty figures are too far away, and I ache to view family stories. I would love to spy my grandfather as he stoked engines on the great lakes all summer long through my mother's childhood.. I would love to ride with my great-great- five times great grandmother as she broke her husband from jail and sit with her while she waited to be given a horse so she could ride after him again. I would love to kiss my grandfather's cheek before he flew on the last day of the second World War to be shot down over the Pacific— the crash that left him a limp for fifty-two years, six children, and thirty-eight grandchildren. But space and time are too hard to unwind, and I am left to view history through leftover words and pictures, and the stamp of family on my face and hands, my hair and height, my life, their stories. April 24—Play around with historical facts |