Object Permanence Redux

Since you can’t give meaning
To what you pay no mind,
And mind is expensive,

Attention the only
Currency meaning has,
Meaningful things vanish

When you don’t notice them.
Fortunately, your brain
Manages cheaper skills

Evolved long before mind,
Such as an assumption
Of object permanence,

Good for not losing track
Of predators or prey
Flickering through the scene.

Even infant humans
Evince surprise when shapes
Behind curtains have gone

Completely while unseen.
Sadly, mind gets surprised
The other way, when things

It ceased attending to
Some time since, meaningless
For lack of attention,

Turn out to still exist.
They startle like monsters
When they rise up again

Out of history’s depths—
The simmering grievance,
The wounds of the old wars,

The unresolved angers,
The meadows of land mines,
The unexploded bomb.

You forgot about us,
The weapons sing, we weren’t
Ever nonexistent,

But for a few years, you
Turned away, and we meant
Nothing. Hello again.