Dr. Rinaldo Diricchardi-Muzga Poet Other

The Button-Time Traveler Poem

If I could press a button—just one,
A brass lever humming in a midnight room—
And shudder back through history’s run,
I’d pause before the urge to bloom.
Would I fix the world?

Avert a war, mend a broken vow,
Convince a poet not to end his song—
Or simply wish I’d learned the cello by now?

Perhaps I’d find the seven-year-old me,
Ears crimson with playground shame,
Letting the bullies’ words root deep—
I’d kneel and whisper, “Your name is not their game.”

Or would I stand on the moon’s dust,
1969—Neil Armstrong’s boot suspended—
And yell, “Try a somersault!” just for the laugh,
So history books would end, “and then he upended.”

Maybe I’d just nudge Newton’s apple,
Make it miss his head by an inch,
And watch him wonder, “Did I imagine that?”
While gravity waits at the bench.

But here’s the truth:
Every itch to change the past
Is really a wish for mercy, for someone—anyone—
To say, “You did okay. At last.”

So I’d use my power not for grand designs
Or rewriting the universe’s rhyme.
I’d find a lonely moment—mine or yours—
And simply show up,
On time.

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