A Young Historian’s Meditation on the Living and the Dead

Petty France

I spend my days among the dead, the ancient and the old,

I haunt the halls of history, the dusty and the cold.

The pages cannot speak to me, the paper has no face,

The letters cannot laugh with me, the ink gives no embrace.

And yet I love discovery, I live in days gone by,

I love the who, what, where, and when, the whether and the why.

But now that one I dearly love is drawing near to death,

And edging ever closer to her last and final breath,

I find myself rebuked for seeing with the eyes of youth,

And failing to appreciate a plain and simple truth:

That archives, graves, and libraries will never disappear,

But kindred, friends, and family will leave us year by year.

If I should wish to hear the voice of one who’s gone before,

Why would I not give equal time…

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