How do we decipher with any assurance
The tantalizing debris of the faceless, wordless past
Buried by sand and soil and
the unimaginable span of millenniums.
There are the tumbled stones that take form
with the diggers’ spades
Recreating the phantom village
With its precisely placed houses
Charred hearths cold with age
Tools of stone, bone and obsidian fashioned
by hands and minds
With an uncanny beauty and symmetry
Tiny figures of fashioned clay
Also faceless but profound with infinite meaning
Then three are the centers of ritual
Structures of amazing beauty
With polished altars and human skulls
Placed with purpose in small cubicles
All presided upon by the overpowering and enigmatic
bucranium of the bull.

ARW
1995