Rare Book Monthly

To Helen Back

The world changes

These past ten years no name has so often crossed my lips,

The cheery solitude of certainty, she

And reality the darker hand maiden

Together have traversed the printed landscape

Kept me company, praised and caterwauled

Celebrated and despised, now mocking and sincere

Her agents long grown weary

Lamenting the cascade of details inconvenient

They that daily paint a picture clear and unsettling

A story built on facts that send baloney to the butcher

To be cut down or overlooked, the one worse than the other

Both unacceptable.

We are in a hard time

And if we were once hard people

Today we stand together or fall apart

The few who hold back I wish them the best

But know with certain stillness that resistance is for naught.

To those who hold out, slaves to the past,

Fearful of the future I offer you this toast

To Helen Back