“You are what your record says you are.”
Bill Parcells, famed NFL Head Coach
If history is time’s only reliable mirror,
what the record says about you and me
and all the you and me and she and hims
that came before isn’t likely to win wings
from any god. But then again, what gods
are there except the ones invented to forgive
our sins and provide a heaven for all the darkness
the soul claims not to see. The record shows
the soul and mind are conjoined twins,
enablers and accomplices, gods themselves
rarely answering to anything beyond the expedient.
And if any real gods still remain, exiled long ago
with their miracles and commandments, they’ve been
happy to stand back in the cloud of their perfection,
hands deep in their pockets century after century.
Because like you and me, that’s who they are
and what the record says they are.
(first published in Potomac Review)