Questions of a Studious Worker
(a version of Bertolt Brecht's Fragen eines lessenden Arbeiters)
J. Quinn Brisben
Who built seven-gated Thebes?
The names of kings appear in books.
Did the kings haul the blocks of stone?
And Babylon devastated again and again,
Who rebuilt it so many times? In what houses
Did the masons live in Lima resplendent with gold?
Where did they go, those bricklayers on the night they
Finished the Great Wall of China? Mighty Rome
Is choked with triumphal arches. Over whom
Did those Caesars triumph? Far-famed old Byzantium,
Did everyone live in palaces? Even in long-lost Atlantis
The drowning shouted in the night
For their faithful slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
Alone?
Caesar enslaved the Gauls.
Did his army have at least a cook?
Philip of Spain wept when the Armada
Was sunk. Did no one else cry out?
Frederick the Great won the Seven Years' War.
Who was victorious besides him?
Every page has triumphs.
Who cooked the victor's banquet?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?
So many records.
So many questions.
