“THE SAND GOES PIT-PAT IN THE GLASS”: Your Spenserian stanza for Poetry Wednesday. I have twenty minutes to finish this before Thursday rolls around! It was initially inspired by the reports of looting at the Iraqi National Museum and the Library, but its point is, I think, broader.

Each year the sea chews further up the beach;

The tide that never ebbs, the years that seize,

Draw things unreachable more out of reach:

The way the Romans really said their V’s,

The songs the Vikings sang on Viking seas–

Our ignorance is sea-deep, old, and vast.

We live conditioned; therefore, on our knees.

Learn from the past detachment from the past.

Time is regret; eternity alone will last.