Red

“Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.”
(The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.)
—Horace, Epistularum liber secundus.
 
 
I forgot the weight of The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
From bookshelf to desk the QL back muscles send up a red flag.
Magnifier included, I supply the flashlight.
 
The definition of the word ‘red’ takes up over seven pages.
720 is the earliest known appearance of that word in English writing.
As of this writing that is just over one thousand three hundred years ago.
 
The progressive rock band King Crimson released the album “Red” in October 1974.
As of this writing that is just under a half century ago.
I was one month shy of my eighteenth birthday.
 
Epistularum liber secundus  appeared between 19 and 11 BCE.
Horace left the world one month shy of his fifty-seventh birthday.
You can google what remains and get the apocryphal details.
 
Will a plastic storage bin of my writings end up in a used books shop?
A curio for the future? Amazing how a singular life is reduced
to piles of paper with smudged or fading ink. Such a pity.
 
[RK, 8/26/22]
 
 
 
The Three Stages of Life
 

        In the beginning there was confusion involving the chronology of the La Brea Tar Pits. Researchers embroiled in carbon-14 dating published scientific papers I never read. I was too busy pulling saber-tooth tigers, sloths, and mastodons to safety. Who could be bothered to read about fake timelines and productive oil fields?
        I excelled at confusion and strict adherence to the rules. I learned to break rules. Only self-appointed authoritarians paid any attention. They showed me the book. Fixated on external appearances, time became a shape-shifting quantity. Artwork became artifacts, writing became a sacred card-turning ritual.
        “I’m doing as little DIY as possible. I can’t imagine living here in ten years.” That’s me prevaricating again. Sledgehammers will crack open the concrete slab, entomb my oxidized memories. Solicitous acquaintances will wrap me in a winding sheet woven from the fragments of a life that could be anyone’s life. It’s that simple.
 
[RK, 8/26/22]