know the past and imagine the futures

life’s backstories

geology can fill in the backstory

while the page on which we live

can easily lie to us of constancy,

we don’t live long enough to readily see

how a stream carves a mountain or rounds a rock,

I want to see volcanoes for there change is obvious,

biology fills in the backstory of natural selection and evolution

that it is easy to deny when life can feel perfectly constant,

we need to live in the moment,

but we need to know the past

and to imagine the futures

so that we make the best decisions today

to allow our grandchildren’s grandchildren

to live and thrive in their present moments. 

by Henry H. Walker

June 23, ’15