CONTEXT

by George Held

Barbarians come and go

with history's ebb and flow.

IS are the new iconoclasts

in a long line of enthusiasts.

Remember the Alexandria library

built by the pharoah Ptolemy?

Among those who burned it

was a pope of the Coptic

persuasion, 300 years

after Julius Caesar's

arson there. So remember,

while some wait for the barbarians,

others welcome them with honor

and others react with horror.

History's all about context:
burnt books precede new texts.

George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.