Secrets of Excavation

Saint Paul, 22 January 2005

Freewheeling cottony seed-pods

Levitate earthen fortifications

Over unreconciled debts

Spanning post and lintel timbers

Resting on shattered timepieces

And century-old train schedules

The errand is posterity’s compost

To burnish buried bulletins

Secreting a glimpse of collapse

Walking sticks prod and poke loam

As untold stories exceed

The manifold of repose

Should we discover suitcases

Embossed with family initials

The contents might include a dapper

Cravat of some eternal traveler

Or postmarked letters written in a

Graceful but illegible pen

Not privy to these communiqués

Since the tools we've excavated

Were never intended to do work, rather

They're so the great-grandchildren

Of your distant progeny would know

What it was you did for a living

When the future floods the valley

One by one we’ll hoist them to high ground

Trudge burdened by satchels of bones

From cold storage to permanent transition

Understanding we assent the laws of antiquity

We may comprehend but not cross over