Nora Rawn
A Poem in the Form of Byron Katie’s The Work After Engaging in Historical Generalizations
And in the past, most people would have been peasants anyway.
But is that true? Is that really true?
I can’t absolutely know that’s true.
And it makes me—smug? Complacent with the world and its sins.
Perhaps I might believe in a better world being possible.
And in the past, one could have dignity, and surplus, and rest.
But is that really true, the world asks again. And answers: sometimes.
Mind over matter. Matter over mind. World stranger and more unknowable.
Katie? What answer then?
And the wind, whistling over the plains of the steppe, speaks to no one in reply.
Nora Rawn works in subrights in publishing and lives in Brooklyn. She has pieces in Dodo Eraser, Dreck Lit, Be About It Press, Hawkeye, Bulb Region, Some Words, and Michigan City Review of Books among others.