John Dewey Is Dead

Next time you thumb thru old history books

take a moment to inhale the fragrance of their musty yellow pages

think about childhood’s libraries

and wonder how long it has been

since your Elementary School Librarian passed away

taking with her to the grave the inscrutable mysteries

of that creaky card catalogue.

I wonder about the historians who authored these hardcover giants

already elderly at the time

wielding tobacco pipes like weapons

as they pondered the heroes and villains of the past

from comfortable reading chairs in mahogany offices

with ornate leaded windows so thick

that the voices of women, workers and Eastern Religions

could not penetrate.

How comfortable they were to create history

in the image of themselves and their gallant childhood heroes

charging at Gettysburg & purchasing Alaska

and then rise to the lectern and claim that they had found some sacred buried treasures.