fame is fifteen seconds for some.
i forget their names.
some have YouTube channels, or
come up with a new way to make
slime with sparkles or rainbow
patterns, but i don’t know the
names. caesar, cleopatra,
ramses: the names that survive
desert sands and historian’s
pens and judgement.
elvis, will his name last as long
as beethoven or bach? How many
years does it take to make a name
a legend? By whose judgement
and pen does the name transform
from a dot on a timeline to the
moment in a high school classroom
when everyone looks at you like
you popped bubble gum on your
face because you’re the only one
who doesn’t know the person’s name?
What will become of Corrie’s name?
Will it survive the sands? If I take
up the pen and write of her, will you
read and remember her? Or, is her
name destined as someone you know
who lost a child last year, and you need
to rush to the grocery store to buy
a baked chicken, so you can make chicken
and rice that night? I’m guilty of this, too.
Today, they will light a candle for my Corrie
Belle, and they will say her name. Five, ten,
twenty years from now, will you remember
Corrie? I know the name better than I ever
knew of caesar, and when I hear Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata, it is the soundtrack playing
inside of me for the loss of a legend: the light,
the imp, and angel far from where I can see.
By Rebecca T. Dickinson. Poem is copyrighted by R.T. Dickinson, 2020.
Corrie's Season 