What Ends

In a trench-cut tunnel at the Athens metro
the foreman kneels to curled bones while the backhoe
settles with a sigh. In this city rich in rubble
the smallest thing can stop a dig: a dog's grave,
clay stone bones and blue beads from the lost collar
still cuddled in the throat. What amazes us
about this? The smallness of the loss or
the smallness of the sweep of history,
which does not blur the love that built
the tiled tomb, or laid the patient jaw
on jumbled paw-bones.

_________
This poem replaces this poem in the long sequence Too Strong to Stop, Too Sweet to Lose (formerly known as Systems of Knowledge). I'm particularly happy to have this piece, which is near the end, echo the first poem in the sequence:

What Marks Us?

Small things: a blue bead,
cracked glass, the rivelled trails
of ants. Think of the marks
of history: the hemlock,
the nails, the moon's face
nocked in sticks. None of these
is great. Touched
and touched again,
the body opens.
Over and over,
the small hands of the rain.

This poem was also written in response to an A.E. Stallings poem I read recently and have been carefully avoiding since, so that I could write my own. As Marc said in class the other night: "if there were only one poem on each subject, I suspect we'd be done by now."

I read the poem now. Rats -- she's got "curled up bones." I thought that was mine! More proof that Stallings is a better poet than me. I want to learn to write in meter so badly, and I'm almost there, but not quite. And now I have to ditch the curled bones. Rats. Double rats. Pooie.