A Red Fragment Is Carefully Recovered

In all the endless books on time—
How’s it shaped? Was it invented?
Does it even, really, exist?—

One all-time favorite metaphor
For illustration purposes
Is the shattering of a dish.

Such infinite ways the pieces
Could fly, but only one way back—
Thus statistical certainty

Says time means there’s no going back.
But there’s scatter, and then there’s trash,
And information in that trash.

Sure, there’s fine uniformity
In piles of well-graded gravel,
Or sand or salt for the market,

Small hope of any treasures there.
But you know you’re on a midden,
Intentional ruins or not,

When you spot a bit of fossil,
Scrap of old glass, painted fragment
Of something broken, nondescript,

Yet not completely nondescript.
If anything like a god lived
Ever, however long ago,

However since crumbled to ash,
Anywhere in this universe,
We have faith in your sifting skills,

The odds you’d find some bit of skull,
Some fallen wall, faded symbols.
Carry on with those telescopes.