Just Another Ichnofossil

Although they’re often more haunting,
Even more poignant than the bones,

It’s true the fossilized footprints
And the outlines of empty homes

Tell you less about the bodies
Than the bodies themselves could tell.

What about texts and inscriptions?
No, they’re still less information,

However complementary,
Telling you what the corpses can’t.

Would you rather have Bronze Age scripts
Scratched in bones for divination

Or the desiccated remains
Of Ötzi, the bronze-skinned Ice Man?

That’s a tough one. Turn it around.
Imagine a skull still holding

A peat bog’s idea of a brain—
That would be a real fossil find.

But what happened to its thinking,
Its inheritance of language,

The living mind that occupied
The skull now nothing but a trace?