“Untitled Poem”

Once, one of my students read a book we had. She was doing a history assignment on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and crying. When I asked her why she said Because. All those people died. I said that if you start to cry for the dead You won’t have much time for anything else. Besides, after all the city people were killed or died off, because their cultures got too high, the barbarians kept some peasants alive for their food value. Some barbarian raped some peasant woman who produced a child who ultimately produced you and me, so there is this family continuity, so don’t cry, it’s obvious, look around! This is the reason why we Americans are a nation of peasants and barbarians,