Used Books

A coherent set of ideas
Evolve and tumble together,
Inhabiting communities
Of bodies seeking benefits.

As individuals see them,
Ideas are lifespan scaffolding,
Although, as most people use them,
Ideas function more like weapons—

Catapults, stone walls, siege engines.
Ideas rise and are abandoned
As living bodies, social groups
Thrash out resource competitions,

But successes among ideas
Are only partly determined
Via human populations.
Ideas feature their own descent

With modifications, and since
No one human population,
No one kind of community
Has yet sequestered everything,

Any vibrant set of ideas
Evolves ways of recombining,
Moving to new populations,
Justifying different dreams

Of bodies in competition.
The most sacred architecture
Of a people might shuffle off
To show up as rephrased ideals

Held by rival demographies.
Each pond has its inhabitants
That found their way from other ponds.
You think that thought’s yours? It isn’t.