Another bit of commentary, from Emblem, 2011

BEST PICTURE

Everyone agreed, it was the greatest movie of the year,
comprised of footage of thousands of separate events
run backward, to a sound track of simple birdsong.

World leaders who had stormed out of meeting
after meeting expertly retraced their steps, backwards
with a little bounce in contrapuntal rhythm
to their previous aggressive certainty.

Scene after scene of refugees unloading wagons and trucks
and moving their furniture into their homes, absolutely
certain where each piece, each picture, each utensil, belonged.

Offshore, battleship cannons swallowed round after round
like vacuum tubes debriding an infection. Footsoldiers,
in a flash, stood upright with their legs back under them
and, as if in a childrens’ game, took three giant steps backward.

And, as if from nothing, from nowhere, smoke, fire,
metal, cloth, even blood and flesh converged to become
a busload of people intent on their mundane errands.

Somehow even the scene of the man’s sad head
rejoining his slumped shoulders was shot to suggest
a humble gratitude, and wasn’t in the least grotesque.

And as if the Christians’ rapture had arrived,
from the streets of Manhattan, up, up from the sidewalks,
from the crumpled hoods and roofs of cars,
through the clearing air, the people rose, straight up, flying.

Wherever it was shown the people cheered.

2.

Until the whole world went to war at once:
The filmmakers were denounced, reviled

as traitors and propagandists.

“Why didn’t they continue going back”
demanded aggrieved historians,
“to when our people suffered?
What about our earlier injury?”

“And ours!” said others.
And ours. And ours. And ours.