- Ariel Durant at age twelve, on skates -
If I had my way, I would not tarry a day!
With an effortless pen at my command
I’d write the annals of infamous Scots and Picts.
I’d continue in fear of gnomish reprimand,
outlining my draft in the purist script.
I’d plot the surest way from imperial Rome
and lead a thinning might along a main axis
back to its fabled, original home.
Ah, what a tome I’d write if I could gain access
to history’s finest array of slings and pikes!
With the earnest regard of a winsome
girl I’d learn of holy, prohibited things – like
the precarious trade of fashioning skins from
the stuff of events both supple and fleet
which gather into patterns they never repeat.
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[Next: The Right Avowal]