Your Past Is Looking Up

Underfoot,
past stories
still being ground into dirt
to grow 
a new narrative.

Today’s news
sounds like old news
but reads faster, looser,
chaotic, derailed.
We still call it new.

We have
a luxury
of hindsight
we don’t engage
until it suits us,

choosing our speed of 
recognition.
As for learning
from history?
Forget it, we’re told.

Everything new
is new
and what is old
is cherry picked
to keep us rushing forward.

Be afraid of that, say
those pushing us to run.
It might catch you
if you look at it.
You could turn into a pillar

of worse than salt — now, there’s
a piece of legend worth 
picking up. Never look back.
Never give up. Never stop,
or risk turning into dust.

At night, though, stars. 
A curtain
of ancient light
flung sky-wide.
All you see there is past.

Some of those stars
are gone
and we
will never know it.
They remind us

of how much we owe
to our past. It’s all you can see
of heaven. It’s all heaven
can see of any of us.
It’s in this dust underfoot.