Forgetfulness
--words and music copyright (C) 1987 by Ernest Clark
         first draft 11/28/87, current 3/22/90

Empty ten million years, maybe more, still the towers proudly stand.
Far below them, the tent people live whose ancestors ruled this land.
  Seven years we'd spent in crossing the void,
  From our homes on far Pareeth,
  Finding now a world whose tent people said
  Long ago its name was 'Rrth.
"And how was it built, the city glittering still,
Standing there yet against the wind?
The people who willed that such a wonder would rise,
Can you tell me of their end?"
  "I do not know;  all is lost;  the ones who know are gone.
  I have forgotten."


So we surveyed the wonders within, understanding not at all.
Generators yet ready to run--cold for ages in their hall.
  Little wiser once a year had elapsed, fighting down the urge to stay,
  We departed to take back our news to Pareeth far away.
"And how were they built, the ships in artwork enshrined
Which challenged and beat Infinity?
And by what fate did your forbears cast them aside
For your tents that I now see?"
  "I do not know;  all is lost;  the ones who know are gone.
  I have forgotten."


Nineteen years later we returned in twenty ships instead of one.
I met the leader of the tent folk again,
To tell him what would be done.
  "For the secrets of the towers we've come, knowledge breeds necessity.
  For the secrets we must push you aside."
  And he said, "This shall not be."
And fire blazed brilliantly from his palm to blind us in its light,
Then a sense of hurtling, heedless fall through an endless night.
And the babies cried, and the ship walls moaned,
And I heard my fellows pray,
And the tone of an infinite power hum soon to fade away....


There before us, to our shock and surprise, Pareeth Home World lay.
Hurled alike were we in space and in time,
To the world that we'd left that very day.
  "And how were they built, the towers glittering still,
  Standing forever to the end?
  And how do we choose a cave to keep us alive to protect from winter's wind?
  "And how do I hold the flint to knock off a spark,
  And how do I split the wood to burn?
  And how do we cure the hides of what we can kill,
  Tell us what we need to learn."
"I do not know;  all is lost;  the ones who know are gone.
I have forgotten."