A Glimpse of Starlight

He says we are entering a new dark age.

I wonder whose words will survive,
Copied by tired hands by candlelight,
Sheltered in stone towers while storms rage outside,
One day to be dusted off and discovered;
Delighted in: look at what embers still burn
From the old dark age.

I know not much was salvaged—
How many scraps of poems by near-despairing romantics,
How many ditties that kept the daily chores bright,
How many stories of this man’s mother, that woman’s son

Have we lost? How many of their words have made our world
What it is, despite our not remembering—
The poets strengthened the people to keep on;
The ditties kept the farms running and the people fed;
Each person in the stories planted a seed, placed a stone, and now

Here we are,
The words lost but their truth in the forests and on the streets.
Legacies have ways of living
No barbarian horde can destroy.