Not So Much Dark as Constricted

It strikes you how medieval

You are. Like Europeans

And Chinese, et alia,

Of that era, you’re bounded

Within a known world’s borders,

Aware of worlds beyond it,

In a fuzzy way, no way

Of traveling to those worlds.

You can only ponder stars.

And, like medieval peoples,

You face a set of problems

For which no well-organized

Vocabulary exists,

And so you make art. This art,

Such as it is. A stop-gap

Cramming the maw of the times

With a system you’ve devised

To think and to feel your way

Through inarticulable

And intractable notions,

As Eleanor Johnson wrote

Those medieval thinkers did,

Although you’re less successful

And certainly less inspired

By the supernatural.

Carry on. What’s happening

Now in the most recent past

Won’t likely be digested

By hermits, saints, or monsters

Of your age until they’re faint

Figures receding as myths

In the next medieval phase

That dreams of Apocalypse.