Sense of Place

March 19 2018

They used to build

on the ruins of the old,

accreting layers

like a sea creature's shell

encrusted with age.

Impatiently striving

ever upward

no matter what had come before.

Yet beneath such busy lives

the past still dwelled;

scorned, perhaps

but at least preserved.

While we heedlessly raze it,

the debris carted away

the ground neutered.

Until all that are left

are soaring towers of steel and glass

anchored in bedrock,

untethered cities

floating on air.

No ancient tells, or tell-tale mounds of sand,

no carefully sifted layers

where further down

is further back.

In fact, no past to speak of.

So future archaeologists

will be starting from scratch

beginning with this benighted century.

A good metaphor, I think

to represent the discontinuous present

the breathless self-importance of now.

And to raise the question

have we become so forgetful

we are doomed to repeat our mistakes,

our humility lost

our sense of place?

And to wonder, when history ends

without murmur or trace,

    who will remember

        . . . who will remain?