History Is Static Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

The past resembles the future more than one drop of water another.
Ibn Khaldun

Time is spread over and over
Layer upon layer. History is static
Events repeat. But time goes,
From past to future, living in present.
Poet’s rendition is time’s sway
Historians talk of events play,
Live Shakespeare, be it tomorrow,
King Lear thus stays, far away
Alexander’s fable, he jumps to the sea,
Brings back demons of many heads,
Who writes, but Herodotus-
The First teacher, in the logic
Didn’t, say, Homer’s great?
We pass it on, like standing before
A ruined city, abandoned home,
Let’s sleep, or struck by amnesia
Many hundred years later, Ah!
When this long age shall pass, so
Prolonged. Pull back the reins, hold
The foot. Halt the time and history stop.

Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
March 3,2014.

Carthage Tunisia old city with Roman Baths of Antoninus Pius 138 AD in Africa, Bill Bachmann@ Posterlounge