THE BURNING ARCHIVE – THE BEGINNING
At last the Grand Inquisitor said:
Let the archives burn.
The paper of history weighs us down.
Virtual memory will be the way from now.
A solitary voice rose in protest:
With our memories burn our hearts.
The Inquisitor acted swiftly:
He unleashed fires, controlled and savage,
Beneath the store houses,
Threw Molotov cocktails in libraries.
A billion pages of etched life
In minutes, memos, letters –
The familiar writing of everyday,
Few metaphors, many more lists.
Within a day, ten thousand years,
And more, gone, gone, gone.
The cord that held us to them,
A line of white ashen hearts.
Jeff Rich
