Clio

Oh, Clio, Muse of history,
Your beauty is a mystery,
An ageless, timeless parchment writ
With anthems mankind cannot quit,
Repeated o’er and o’er again
For folly is the way of man,
And yet your knowledge I have seen
Caught lapsed amid the in-between
Of stolen glances you permit
To steal my way as I submit
In awe by all you have been through-
The war; the wrath; they’re nothing new
As you have lived and loved again,
Erupting from the heart of man,
A glimmer in the flashing pan
We call our lives, this race called man,
Unsure of anything we do,
But that we shall repeat this cue:
Our history is just an act
Repeated throughout all time’s tract,
And you, the wisest of us all
Have tried to separate and stall
The nations from abridgement’s score,
Which led them once again to war,
Thus history repeats itself,
Just one more textbook on the shelf
Removed, reviewed, renewed once more,
The blue print for our next World War,
Yet you are history in truth,
The essence offering the proof
All cultures need to see the light,
Catastrophes that lead to plight
Unbridled in the horses mouth,
The distance strewn from north to south,
Continue though you try and warn
Each generation of such scorn.
Oh Clio, beautified and rare,
Depict for me a poet’s flare
For capturing the past in verse,
Thus helping me to break the curse
As all you are in me will be
A chance to rewrite history.

James Matthew Byers is a published author(Grecian Rune, 2004) and a father of two. James has been married to his wife, Dorothea, for seven years. Mr. Byers teaches 8th Grade English at Moody Junior High. He resides with his family and two cats in Rainbow City.

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