Archaeology

290 word poem

Two sides of of sacred, fleeting Earth

One end of time, the other

So many thousand years ago,

A peaceful, pleased and aged man

Peered deep in to the ancient night,

And spoke

The inky sky did echo back, with

Laughing, shining jewels and said:

I’ll fill the little Vessel in your hands now,

Human Man

For you’re to come forever after Home.

I’ll place the rhythms of your time

And all the music in your mind

The magic of your stories and your wisdom,

in your Cup;

The colors of your family, and

Richness of your seasons, the

Passion of your heady dreams, and

Wishes lost, inside;

The musings of your closest friends,

Your banter by the evening fire, the

Pieces of your lives and

Love you keep, I’ll place inside;

All your riches settle

In the Cup of blackened stone

The essence of your Soul

Will keep, inside.

II

So many thousand years go since, and

I, I’m walking westward there,

Surprised to find I stumble in the road.

Underneath my hands,

What do I see as I get up,

But the glinting of the sun

Upon a little blackened Cup.

I feel compelled to sit beside the

Road and hold it still, and as I do

the rhythms of his life inside me spill;

The magic of his stories and

The wisdom of his years

I sense the ancient seasons

And my eyes sting now with tears

I look into a sunlit sky and

Hear a whisper soft;

An echo of a message to a

Soul long since aloft.

I hold the Vessel high above

My head, eons gone by, and

Wonder who I am to have this

Present from the sky.