Making History

I remember the bicentennial while we lived in Virginia. I was a 17 year old kid enjoying my one high school year in the USA. On the 14th of July we flew to France where I began my senior year.

Here in the south of France, history, the very old kind, is everywhere. Around the corner from here, there’s a header on top of a five foot doorway with 1467 carved in it. Right next door the “new” addition was completed in 1638. Crayfisherman lived here in the 1200’s. Every single building has the most remarkable bulges and curves, which I love even though most of a carpenter’s life is spent making things square, level and plumb.

                Making History

        Exactly what is history?
Is it when the border is breached
         and the peasants flee?
  Does an archduke need to die?
            When the ink is dry
     upon the signed surrender
               are all the tears
      compelled to dry as well?

      A war packs up its wares
              in a tidy caravan, 
    pulled by a very tired horse.
     The baker must find a man
      with flour who is not dead.

   While the bombs and bullets
       exchanged sharp blows
               I’d like to think
        you can recall my wink
     before this calamity began
         and we can set about
         making a little history,
              just you and me.
          We shall shoehorn it
       between the coronation
             and the hanging,
   regardless which comes first.