A Book on a Shelf

A history of some sort, one that made us,

a war and what the war had meant, or since

meaning eludes war, what it did to the look

of the trees and the sides of the buildings,

most of which survived, only to be torn down

later to widen the street or put up a new

office complex. There it was on the shelf.

I was there only a moment, but still,

I wanted to know what happened to the man

in the photograph wearing a flat cap

standing outside the important building

cheering. He was there. He was part of that

moment, one of the first into the streets

when the turn of events came, the declaration

or pronouncement, words that would change

the look of everything he smiled on, words

that may have cost him his life. Here it is

in a book I found on a shelf. The person

who lives here bought it at a library

stock reduction sale. No one had read it.

It looked interesting thirty years ago.

It was practically new, the back uncracked.

But the person did what those before her had,

put it up on a shelf and never found

a way back to it. The history sits there,

unread, unbelievable, somebody else's.

Even I have only looked at the pictures,

at the man smiling between the cold pages.

Maybe ending the world as he knew it

was ok. Maybe it was the only way.

Maybe the world has to come to an end

in the first place to be the world. And the man?

He has to smile, though he knows so little

of what's coming, even looking right at it.

As we do, who still haven't read the book.