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Iron
A time to rake; to search embers,
to pore over resurrected,
fire-damaged relics.
On an ancient shore
driftwood, fagots, and reeds
are heaped up onto a pyre of time.
After the fire there is a sorting.
a probing for talismans and trinkets.
Before the flames, flesh had hidden them,
in its open wounds.
An iron crucifix; smutter tarnished,
lays blackened by the quick flames.
It is held up to the sun,
by a tattered man of woe.
Death’s archeologist
wipes this soot-seared icon,
with a sweat-stained rag.
Other artifacts are long drowned,
they wait for the hands
of fishermen to haul them in,
to return them
to a modern-day Nazareth,
there, Islamic street traders
still sell religious curios
for Israeli shekels.
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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