The Historian

Isabel Ros López

Artwork by ©”Cueva de las Manos” Santa Cruz, Argentina

History is written by the powerful, the conquerors, those who overpower others through abuse. Most stories are unheard or unwritten. The historian in this poem hears the unheard voices and weaves the cloth of history to be seen and heard.”

 She is the story seeker
the chronicle collector
who weaves it all together
with tireless memory thread
to help the grand picture
become and make sense


The searcher who reads
the written but the unwritten as well
finder of the hidden experience
removing veil after veil
digger of the gems
that lie buried time and again


The memory worker
traveller in time
detector of spaces
and voices passed on
finder and reporter
of all things otherwise lost 


The resolute seer child
who knew that the emperor 
never had any clothes
who knows he got there
through slavery and blows
through theft, plunder and lies


The sleuth unseduced
by the glamour of reams
of bound printed paper on shelves
for she knows just a fraction of tales
lie there while the rest are thrown
into the well of neglect


The emperor and his court
continue to delude
the people with deceit
and the tricks of his crooks
the ones who wrote and still write
most of the history books


She is the story seeker
the searcher who reads
the memory worker
the traveller in time
the sleuth unseduced
the determined seer child


I told you who she is
Guess who she is not
She is the great listener
who heeds the voices unheard
For this historian to succeed
all of us need to be her.

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