(She says it's useless.)
The usual progress-and-change argument,
And I always hotly defended the worth
Of my 94 in ISC
In the subject that investigates and records what people live by.
I don't know anymore.
How much can we leave behind,
And how fully?
I cannot say that I have forgotten
Even when I have (hopefully) forgiven,
Though my memory for facts is like
A baked-goods smell in a bare kitchen.
Lingeringly, heartbreakingly empty.
And how much do I even want to forget?
How much is the child the father of the man,
And when does it become
Sins of the son visited on the father?
I am not Nemesis. I can only
Remember, catalogue,
Perhaps provide some leads to proof
When the case comes up in court.
I cannot even say what I mean. Cannot
Rise in protest like those
Brave young college students of the seventies
(now mired teaching us)
Who feared neither torture nor incarceration.
It isn't that, now; I speak in metaphors
Because of the anecdotal evidence
Of generations of Experience telling me
That Growing Up and Succeeding In Life
is learning to shut up.
Even if you remember.
How much use is history?
Perhaps students must put up
Parchas and morchas in soundproof corridors
And other academic circles.
And maybe then they will remember to change.
