Between the Moon and the Sun (Excavations)
I stared, and stared, and stared
Following the light with my eyes
To see beneath the dress
The deep bosom of water suckling
Babels on the ancient salt of primal seas.
We build our ladders not from mountains
But their stones
Children searching for the cookie jar
Orphans in a tidal war ...
And have found more solid answers
Digging down
When my only dream is up
How sense distort our ambiguities!
Dashur, Saqqara, and Giza
Extrapolate a northern line
Imaginary as an equator, as all
Our knowledge of wrong and right
We are the shards of a bitter fall
The Mayan built there
And Teotihuacan here
Light beyond the dark Caucus frozen caves
Map the heaven in solid mud.
It is a long walk between civilizations
But there is something in the cultures
That long to embrace
A common history
From Palenque, Tikal, Tulun
Chichenitza, Copan, Uxmal
We climb the stairs of Babel again
Shaanxi, Nakkhodka
These undiluted Semites sing
Upon drums of stones
The gospel's truth in them enthroned
There seven million shards of stars
In a broken desert shining
Through the jungle of present night
Tzintzubtzan
These poor Daedalus
Their Khofu and Cheops
Just a different mound of dust
A metaphor
For the excavation of human meaning
Something to break the spell of death
Something to say of my coming
Tomorrow is beyond our regret.
Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2009
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