There is always dust and the surrender to it—

giving up and no longer cleaning after the dry rain

and falling leaves—let the wind do its part,

and let the forgetting begin, and the forgotten

step closer to ruin. Here a people shrugged

and threw their hands in the air, then slouched

away, to some place different: the land of fresh

starts—vacated, no doubt, by another people

who could no longer live the way they always had.

So a coat of dust settles on the tools left behind,

stored in their earthy beds, waiting for the brush

of an archeologist, his breath dampening

the surface with his fascination over the hilts,

You see: they used this edge to slice the skull

(Trepanning); and this long one to prod the brain back

to thinking like the rest of them had.

J.P. Dancing Bear (CA)  is the editor of the American Poetry Journal and owner of Dream Horse Press. His work has appeared in Cimarron Review, National Poetry Review, Shenandoah, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. His latest book of poems is Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004).