There
were those
who
paid attention
to
the old
texts
which meant
nothing
to most.
In
those texts
the
story of our errors
our
incompleteness
and
the danger we wove
around
us, called Hubris
by
the Greeks. The freaks
in
the class know, but others
of
you who read my words now
didn't
know the elders’ words
were
like gold: this civilization
will
end. Greed and monstrous
ignorance
crowns every empire.
But
you didn't get it. You
wrote
notes about
the
football game
drew
pictures of Eagles
swooping
from the mountains.
Nothing
is lost
to
the old ghosts
of your notebooks
inhabiting
the hallways.
Of
Herodotus they
still
whisper and the
wars,
the wars, the
wars
we went over. But
there
is nothing
important
there. The teachers
taught
to atomic dust.
For
those of us
who
remember
it
is late.
