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