Scraping at the Door That Never Opened

Why do you put us
So deep in the caves?
Why in caves at all?

Wherever caves are,
And you’re living near,
For thousands of years,

In you go to carve
Us, paint us, dust us
All over the walls.

And you do it still—
Seed banks, microfilms,
Ceramics, data,

Clocks of the long now—
What kind of monkey
Ever craves crawling

Belly-up through rough
Darkness underground—
To save us? Save what?

You can’t even read
Half your glyphs yourselves.
Why crawl into hell

To store the symbols
That evolve as fast
As you can carve us?

We suspect you want
Both to keep us safe,
Like weapons caches

To use on other
Teams of each other
In some fantastic

Future conflict, and
To get rid of us,
To put us away,

Out of your weak minds
Febrile already
With too many signs.