Jeremy Bass

What strange beasts
they will say of us
who gave away the tasks
of four-legged creatures
abandoned the touch of wood
salt on a horse's mane
for plastic rubber who rejected
typewriters the smoothed brow
of an envelope's fold blocked
rivers built sidewalks over
open streams for mattresses
cups Transatlantic flight
Yes they turned from candles flame
Yes they let the great hulls of steamships
collapse into wheel-spokes of dust
But who were they
the historians will ask
these people who chose concrete steel
threads of electricity who sent
anger fear through vast
vaults of wire traded
paper glued bindings
for flatscreens honey-bees
for the promise of erasing
decades of lines in a face
Did they too study history
long to avoid mistakes
Did they too seek relentless
change marvel at the
instruments of their own
creation We are
not so different
they will say Look
how the dust rises
from these pages then
settles into place again