Oracle of Confederate Statues
1.
To see the future the eye must burn
must experience its mass in two places
must cross dimensions
must love the flame
No one chooses to see
but not see
no one looks fondly upon the future
2.
What’s the use in such knowledge
we have a firm grasp
on myths like old blankets
we wrap ourselves in comfort
let’s not read inscriptions
not tonight by the fires
you’ve carelessly lit
here are the great surrenderers
mounted and pointing stoically
into a battle centuries gone
here once were cannons
and you may still hear the echoes
of the thread-bare and torn dead
and where it should have ended
it did not
These monuments
buried in Ozymandian sand
inscriptions worn
the tired faces warn
men from their hatreds
leave them earthed
and forgotten
now that the world is a better place
3.
you come to me not to see
that which is to come
but here you are
waxing nostalgic over the past
not even your own
but people who died
so long ago their very definition
of human (all humans) should be so different
from your own
4.
Now you fight to continue
to ignore the future
of sand slipping through
whispering truth
does not require your belief
to exist
still, I must open my eyes to this future
whenever yours are closed
J. P. Dancing Bear is co-editor for the Verse Daily and Dream Horse Press. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, most recently, Cephalopodic (Glass Lyre Press, 2015), and Love is a Burning Building (FutureCycle Press, 2014). His work has appeared or will shortly in American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, the DIAGRAM and elsewhere.
From the Editor: Welcome to Califragile‘s Featured Poet for October, J.P. Dancing Bear! Watch for poems from his Oracle series on Mondays and visit Verse Daily!
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