The Ancients

Studying up on the ancients and recalling my reading of Thucydides some years ago, I dug up this old poem:

Missing Teeth

Early in Thucydides' history
Pericles makes a long set speech
Warning his fellow Athenians
Not to undertake new invasions
While they're still at war with the Spartans.

Two hundred pages later, after Pericles
Is dead and forgotten, what do the Athenians
Do? They invade Sicily.

I see what's coming.
With three hundred pages left,
Thucydides will recount error after error,
So that by the end
Of his unfinished narrative,
We will wonder how anyone
Managed to survive the constant terrors
Of siege, slaughter and starvation.

Yet, somewhere off the map
And outside of Thucydides' history,
An old grizzled goat herder
Far up the rocky mountain
Has managed to miss the entire show.
He is like a god
Who hasn't been paying attention.
Or maybe he is a man
Thinking about the woman
He saw last week at the well.
Why wouldn't she speak to him?
Does he smell that bad?
Or is it his missing teeth?

Off the map and outside of history,
They worry about such small matters,
As they should.