There Came a Day
There came a day
when even his name was forgotten.
The last gilded letters
affixed to proud institutions
no longer caught the light in their spelling.
Worn down to nothing readable,
clinging, unseen for centuries,
they finally sloughed themselves off,
shamed by their own irrelevance.
The last patent had long ago expired,
the syndicate splintered,
the foundations foundered;
mainframes had dissolved
as had all things hard and soft.
Tungsten and cobalt,
tantalum and silicon
had rejoined the underground,
no longer purposed to the empire
he claimed was enduring and progressive
but in fact was only temporary,
an ugly fever dream of the few.
The day his name dropped
from humankind’s memory,
of course, no one noticed.
***
Long before that, so very long,
when time exacted his last breath,
he had a vision:
every image of him, every likeness,
every single seemingly uncountable word
that shouted his name
or sang his fate
would someday vanish…
even what you’re reading now.
Awareness flickered,
like a reptile tongue
snapping up dew,
allowing him in that moment
to see: all his machinations,
the back-door dealing
and back-slapping
and back-stabbing,
all the necessary lies
and necessary deaths
—which were not, in fact,
necessary—
would never secure his ill-gotten dominions
for perpetuity;
would never succeed in bottling his soul like a genie
to be unearthed at a far-off dawn;
would never master the universe
or the globe
or even one crooked heart.
At the end,
though billions knew of his passing,
not one tear marked the occasion,
and as this world slipped his grasp,
too late to him came truth:
the day would come
when no one would remember his name
because none had loved
the man who owned it, and
the man who owned it
had loved none
but himself.
Too late to him came this:
Time erases all but love;
all else is carved in sand.
***
The day his name was forgotten,
as on every day before it
and every day after,
the air rippled ever so gently,
birds warbled as they always do,
and the slow river wound itself
through green folds in the earth,
ferrying silicon to grateful trees
who traded it for hardiness,
spreading their blessing a little fuller
in the light of the eternal sun
with no regret.
I just went back to catch up on some old posts and am reading this poem at the heels of your post on Salman Rushdie’s acceptance speech and was thinking how someone ought to quote Mary’s poems there if not outright award her the peace prize. I know, I know, accolades, blah blah, but what the world is in desperate need now is the reminder of our short time here, the gentle nudge to look at those things we’ve written in the sand that are being washed away by the tide, to help us acknowledge to ourselves and to one another how beautiful and magnificent life is; to recognize it within our own souls and within the souls of the other. Your poetry ever so pointedly brings presence to that knowledge. So I award my own peace prize to Mary PointDeTruth Mcalaughlin. May one day the walls of some stuffy academic hall be softened by your words and may they ring true in the hearts of those who had never heard them. ❤️
Oh my! Thank you Mary!!! I so needed that. I was reminded of a few memorial services that I have attended in which some of the most heartfelt beautiful remembering was shared. The gift that was left for each person who spoke of the departed was love. Love as caring and kindnesses given. Love as bedrock and firmament. Love that has touched so deeply and changed lives. Love is remembered and held in the heart. Thank you for sharing your beautiful heart again and again!
Also, thank you for sharing that lovely song...I had a good long cry. I was softened.
A dear man that I know says this to me, "I am love with you". "I am love with you Mary".