The Desert and Dementia
“that fragmented legacy of ideas and figures, stories and histories which can be as real to us as our own more immediate past” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri were trapped
In desert sands for half a million nights
And days. A Middle Eastern dump had wrapped
Them in its rubbish. Lost Menander’s heights
Of comedy lay there in remnants. Some
Of Sappho’s fragments were recovered. More
Of Euclid’s perfect diagrams rose from
The trash heap. Histories long silent roar.
The poetry of Alcman hymns again
A resurrected song beside a life
Of Athens’ youngest playwright of the reign
Of tragedies composed of mythic strife.
..These little tattered pieces from the blind
….Sands are like soft shards in a faded mind.