Back in the Days When Papyrus Was on a Roll, and There Were Seven Wonders in the World by Robert Witmer

Back in the Days When Papyrus Was on a Roll, and There Were Seven Wonders in the World

If, in some ways, events in ancient Alexandria presage our own time, it is possible, if not likely, that the decline of libraries and openminded enquiry and debate will rise again – in flames. And our exegetical Homers, such as they are, will flee and disperse themselves in the hinterlands, where wildflowers bloom in patches of sun. The specters of poverty and war. Recurring like mushrooms on a rotten log. Words could never change the world, though they make good tinder. Light – the rainbow in the spectrum of knowledge, not an isolated red, or blue, but the entire bridge, still under construction, as it forever must be, while the engineers of reading badly submit to thoughtless desperation and board the ferry of stone.

Robert Witmer has resided in Japan for nearly 50 years. Now an emeritus professor, he has taught courses in poetry and short fiction at his home university in Tokyo, Japan, as well as in India. His writing has appeared in many print and online journals, including The Opiate, Bewildering Stories, Infocalypse, Dreams & Nightmares, The Dread, Moonday Mag, Lily Poetry Review and many others. He has published three collections of poetry: Finding a Way; Serendipity; and Sunrise, in a Rabbit Hole. Interviews about his published works can be found at The Wise Owl and Drifting Sands Haibun websites. In addition to his original works, he served as the editor for a series of volumes of translations of contemporary Japanese plays, Half a Century of Japanese Theater.