October 27, 2023

all these years and we must have been wrong

looking downward instead of looking upward

starting from the end instead of the beginning

asking “What would we do?” of the wrong day

wanting an opportunity in what’s already done

Wells, Willis & Wyndham, they had good eyes

Bradbury & de Camp did not, but they had fun,

Heinlein didn’t either, but he got really weird,

and don’t get me going on Anderson or Varley

(maybe their name needed to start with a “W”

for the writer to write about time-travel right)

for each of them wrote like they were certain

the past is not malleable but the future sure is

a placard might guide our step into tomorrow

yet were we to show our placard to yesterday

(I won’t say we will, my name starts with “R”)

but if we did, and if we cared enough to look

we’d find our own footsteps in yesterday's news