From About the Time of the Destruction

World War II came and went.
Most people survived it.
That’s easy to forget—

For the tens of millions
Who were killed in some way
By that global horror,

There were two, three billion
Survivors, those alive
At the start and the end,

Most of whom have died since.
Thirty-two centuries
Earlier, give or take,

Just after a solar
Eclipse, the late Bronze Age
Kingdom of Ugarit

Collapsed of starvation
And repeat invasions,
Despite having lasted

A few millenniums.
In nineteen-twenty-nine,
Excavations began

At the site by a team
Of archaeologists
Headed by Claude Schaeffer.

After a decade, work
Stopped due to World War II.
Then, in nineteen-fifty,

It started again, led
By the same Claude Schaeffer,
Who had survived the war

And continued to lead
Excavations until
Nineteen-seventy. So.

A small interruption
In the reconstruction
Of the never-restored.

This is the mystery
Of civilization—
Ascension, violence,

Destruction, and ruin,
Stones joined end to end by
The spittle of small lives.