Abandoned Mines and Leaking Wells and Middens Massed Like Mountains

Look on this waste, you walled bricks
Of Gilgamesh, and despair.
Nothing has ever moved Earth
As much as this one species,
Not even all ants combined.
Look on this accomplishment
And weep. Weeping apes did this.

Weeping apes did this and wept
At their own accomplishment.
Not even all ants combined
Moved dirt like this one species.
Still the Earth moves as it did
Before the first lists of kings.
It spins and eats its own skin.