I wish I knew less of history by Arlene Wohl I wish I knew less of history how the spokes of its wheel keep turning always returning to the same sorry place where the snake is reminded to hiss and snivel whenever the spoke lands on its worn sore spot. The wheel wobbles along across time the path’s markings unclear, it wants to make headway, go forward, but finds itself circling back to places familiar to linger for a while in hateful terrain, and all because it lost its way, again. The journey interrupted by marchers with slogans, sirens warning to shelter, signs urging death to the other, scenes too despicable to describe; the wheel now stuck in mud of crumbling decorum it can’t pry itself loose from the ruin and rot. But the wheel of history cannot stop for long and sooner or later reason is restored, the search for sanity is found; the wheel dusts itself off from dried bloodshed to move on, but memories remain and the path’s markings toward the future are confusing, some pointing here, others there. Copyright 2023 by Arlene Wohl
Arlene Wohl has always been drawn to both cloth and words.As a weaver she would tell stories that expressed color, texture and feeling. Now she does the same with her poems by weaving words together which she hopes will resonate in much the same way as carefully executed handwovens do. The similarity in the creative process led to her recently completed manuscript of ekphrastic poems in which fiber and words tell the same story in different ways.
This an excellent poem. Well woven indeed. But the trouble is that people are dying, and each of them … well, you know… and history doesn’t care. I’m afraid to turn on the news every morning. Sometimes I don’t.
This is an excellent poem, and it speaks to my feeling exactly.