Beforenby Harold McCurdyn”A great while ago the world begonnwith hey, ho, the winde and the raine.”n— Twelfth NightnBefore the pyramids rose, before the cities.nBefore the caves of painted horse and deer.nBefore the cairns and cromlechs, there was fearnIn little lives, and a thousand forgotten pitiesnThronging around some silent, leaf-strewn bier.nThe history of mankind is a long historynOf grief, and terror balanced against terror.nOf hunting for the lost, of valiant error.nOf consciousness awake to its own mystery.nStuck, but for love, in mind’s self-serving mirror.nHistory? Well, prehistory! We must scrapenBelow the shaped things to begin to knownThe depth of human and prehuman woe.nThe scurrying through the leaves, the near-escape,nThe meteor falling, the earth-shattering blow.nThen, after a while, a long long after a while.nThe scribes scratch out some record of an event,nOr man or woman worth a monument.nOr celebrate themselves, till the crammed filenOf history asks to be asked what history meant.nTimes pass, and time is passing, while we stillnWait for a clue. Strange happenings occur:nCordelia dead, and the King weeping for her.nThe throne usurped by Regan and Goneril.nFast, fast, the rumors fly, the spindles whir.nPoised on the warhead of a Titan missilenExploding in Arkansas, we cast a glancenAt Titans of the old time, and the advancenFrom Then to Now; and whistle, if we can whistle,nThe Future up from the darkness we call Chance.nnn)UNE 1991/11n