Plausibly, the day will come
when amphitheatres draw the crowds
with dramas set on Mars or on the Moon,
telescoping distance, time and space
onto a future plane, where Greek ghosts
in the audience applaud mythology's review,
and Roman revenants approve
the spectacle, glimpse frontiers new.
Instead of sitting for two hours in marble tiers
to be transported back two thousand years,
it's possible to board a shuttle
travelling towards the stars,
to stations orbiting beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Will they read "The Odyssey" in lunar colonies?
Which classics likely will survive in Martian cyberlibraries?
Will companies of actors tour the galaxy, presenting works
from ancient cultures of the Earth?
Who will the space-age heroes be?
What of the heroines inscribing herstory on history?
At what point will earth-time, earth-distance
blur into anachronism, truncated as on a stage,
but skewed towards the universe?
When concepts and relationships
resolve themselves in cosmic terms,
will human consciousness be redefined?
Time and distance change their aspect
as we wake and work and sleep,
their ratios were always relative,
and never fixed.
Only the play has us transfixed,
buying tickets to tomorrow,
or a fictive yesterday
fast-forwarded two thousand years
to entertain us neo-Romans
lolling in the grandstand tiers.