How Many Things Will Have Had Since

Thousands of years ago now,
And this is true, at least two
Thousands of years and some now,

In the cosmopolitan
Sprawl of the largest city
Of the world, a royal heir

Was born to the emperor,
An heir who would grow to be
Singularly powerful

In his era and then, too,
Powerfully singular
In retrospect, so that tales,

Legends, hagiographies,
And histories are still told
In the shadows of his bones.

But this isn’t about him
Or any of his legends.
This is a moment to pause

And think what hadn’t happened
Yet on that day he was born.
Go ahead. Try it yourself.

Push back more than two thousand
Years ago, two thousand plus
A few centuries or so.

Ask yourself, ask anyone
Or any machine that knows,
To list the calamities,

The major plagues, invasions,
Droughts, quakes, colonizations,
Religious wars, enslavements,

Inventions of new weapons,
Variations on torture,
New kinds of exploitations

That hadn’t been thought of yet,
Along with the suggestions
For ameliorations

And utter transformations
Of individual lives,
Of the systems of the world,

The philosophies, wisdom,
Arts, and sciences no one
Had yet dreamed of then, that day

The royal heir was brought forth
To shouts of adulation
Of his name, long since legend.

Pause and maybe ask yourself,
If this moment’s like that one,
As auspicious as they come,

And things go on happening,
With endings but unending,
What’s a next few thousand since?