A Tale of Progress

I was back in the library
where winter coats, carpet, and wood
were like an old friend who listened
intently to me and understood.

I was back in the library
gliding about without a search,
the silence there looking at me
like the candles of a church.

What stood and lay on the bookshelves
had the aura of dunes or sands,
of old ships suspended in the sky,
the smell of strange, exotic lands.

Soon I walked out the door
with three books in my bag,
some trees clicking upon themselves,
some trees sagging with ice.

The thought of a building I know
held me as I cut through the park
enamored with crusted snow
and quietly courting the dark.

I made my way to what seemed
a downtown with a blank stare – stars
looked past me as did absence of people,
and absence of cars.

There it stood – the building, proud, tall,
men with bowler hats pouring in
whose faces I couldn’t quite see,
pouring – without a speck of din.

Only one man with a bowler hat
stood still there, in seeming delight…
It was Rene Magritte, smiling,
flowering yellow in lamplight.

He beckoned to me to join him inside.
By the elevators we waited.
When the doors opened, within glass walls,
Obama was plainly stated –

an expression of neatness, eloquence.
Smiling, he extended his hand,
the elevator gliding upward…
But something, like a rubber band,

snapped – and then we were falling fast,
Obama with a frightened stare
gripping the elevator handle,
Rene tossing an apple in the air…

And the elevator smashed to pieces
somewhere – in the middle of nowhere.
I dug myself out of a pile
of plastic Obama figurines…

We were alone, Rene and I,
a wind humming across a plain,
no houses, no campfire smoke,
no sign that people there had been.

Only a forest was, that seemed
a concentration of my fear,
a forest whose twilight glare
threatened all that I held dear.

Nausea announced itself like
postmodernism – and I turned away;
from the forest I turned away,
and Rene walked up to me

with a silver tray of masks.
Back we could only head,
return to everyday tasks
once I chose a mask, he said.

I was back in the building, back
at my workplace, steeped in the ease,
the familiar companionship
of mouse-clicking and buzzing bees.

It was five, I’d be leaving soon.
I’d visit the library again.
Twilight was shedding her cocoon.
I thought to myself again:

my knowledge isn’t as deep or wide
as I would like it to be;
I’m a drunkard’s vision or pauper perhaps
in matters of history.

My knowledge isn’t deep or wide
was the persistent thought.
So history became my guide,
and the library saw me a lot,

the library disclosing ways
of different economies,
disclosing a complex maze
of political strategies.

I was learning, learning, yes,
my thoughts more elaborately arrayed,
clearer, sharper – certainly progress
was being made.

One winter morning I waited,
and when the elevator doors
opened, I saw plainly stated
Donald Trump and Rene Magritte,

saw the glass enclosure again,
heard Trump with a confident smile
say “We’ll make America great again.”
(We were plunging all the while.)

The elevator smashed to pieces.
I was buried in figurines again.
Rene and I and the forest
were found on the plain again.

I was more afraid than before,
the first escape having fed the fear,
and I turned away – as before.
A tall figure was playing near,

playing sadly a violin
as birds floundered in crude-oiled slime,
as Rene Magritte juggled
three apples this time.

Dropping them in mock exasperation,
he led me to a table, a tray
with more refined and elaborate
masks this time – and a wider array.

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