When I was young the earth was a hard blue globe
             with multi-colored countries and British pinks
             standing by a desk as tall as I
             and spun round by my grandfather’s wooden fingers.

Slowly working pause and counterpause
             he crossed the deserts, jungles and three oceans;
             the ball became a five by fifteen spread—
             a flat idea projected on a wall.

One day Odysseus crossed to Ithaka;
             then Roland on his mountain blew his horn;
             Dido rose from the ashes of her love;
             Cauchon lit the match that burned up Joan.

Now my long-lived hours recombine the past.
             All time is fiction; in the seas men drown.
             How can I prove my grandfather existed,
             or there’s a library where this world will last?