Olden Days

Olden Days

The olden days. The vague, full-skirted
past. Everything that happens or lives

belongs to it, to the cape flung round
the shoulders of each molecule.

The olden days are comforting, memory
that exists with no mind to box it in,

a pasture. Butter churns and chain mail.
Alchemy, chimney sweeps, pin curls

and blood letting and powdered skin.
Those charming ignorances that did not

result in death or hatred or pain, like
mistaking the weather for moody gods,

or fearing what reading novels might do
to ladies reclining on velvet furniture.

When your body fails, as it is intended to,
the humans you have known and made

and spoken to will think of you. The past
will always be there for them and

for you, a darkness we were borrowed
from that waits for us to return.