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?