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Archaeology
The older we get, the deeper we dig into our childhoods,
Hoping to find the radiant cell
That washed us, and caused our lives
to glow in the dark like clock hands
Endlessly turning toward the future,
Tomorrow, day after tomorrow, the day after that,
all golden, all in good time.
Hiwassee Dam, North Carolina.
Still 1942,
Still campfire smoke in both our eyes, my brother and I
Gaze far out at the lake in sunflame,
Expecting our father at any moment, like Charon, to appear
Back out of the light from the other side,
low-gunwaled and loaded down with our slippery dreams.
Other incidents flicker like foxfire in the black
Isolate distance of memory,
cross-eyed, horizon-haired.
Which one, is it one, is it any one that cleans us, clears us,
That relimbs our lives to a shining?
One month without rain, two months,
third month of the new year,
Afternoon breeze-rustle dry in the dry needles of hemlock
and pine.
I can't get down deep enough.
Sunlight flaps its enormous wings and lifts off from the back
yard,
The wind rattles its raw throat,
but I still can't go deep enough.