Those Who Launched The End of All War
-for Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, founders of Wikipedia.

I.
A time line pamphlet accordion unfolds
the entire history of human civilization–
all our story in context. Beautiful print.
Bound truth. Liberty in hand. Men want it
destroyed. It gives children a chance.

II.
We finished painting the nursery today.
Took nine months. No baby seals or cumulus
skies, swallows or safari animals, arbors or arks.
A time line. All of it, from door hinge to handle,
from hardwood flooring to textured plaster ceiling,
four walls depicting the recorded history of humanity:
exploration, invention, myth making, agriculture, technology.
It is done. Now only to teach the child to read before grandparents
attempt to blind and shutter out information that surrounds
save the twelve by seven inch segment they will to accept.

III.
A fifty-foot flat bed diesel parks
on the corner of State and North U.
Two forty-foot telescopic masts
elevate at its ends. A banner is raised,
200 square feet taut between uprights.
A time line. The history of humanity
in plain sight. The bullhorn preacher
out front of the pharmacy is first to drop
his jaw. It rains astonishment and silence.
Krishna chanters across the divide
drum no more, but rise. Sidewalks
and lawns superimpose with mandibles
and discarded misinformation.
All bodies shape to ear and eye.
Heartbeats syncopate. Language
marked with only questions met
by epiphany. Air, the taste of truth
without argument. From here,
there is only we.