The Past Is the Present 

Revived bitterness
is unnecessary unless
    One is ignorant.

To-morrow will be
Yesterday unless you say the
    Days of the week back-

Ward. Last weeks’ circus
Overflow frames an old grudge. Thus:
    When you attempt to 

Force the doors and come
At the cause of the shouts, you thumb
    A brass nailed echo.
Credit

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 29, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“The Past Is the Present’” was published in Others: An Anthology of New Verse (Alfred A. Knopf, 1917).