Recent Advances in What’s Been Abandoned

Latrines are ideal, coprolites,
Though scattered, still invaluable.
Whatever stomachs didn’t want,
Whatever stomachs couldn’t use,

Whatever waste’s truly wasted
Rather than being recycled,
That’s still packed with information,
Those are libraries we can use.

From them, we know what was eaten,
From them, we learn which worms and flies
Had dug in to parasitize.
From them economic systems,

Hierarchies, inequalities,
Taboos and rules can be deduced.
Whatever the world doesn’t swallow too fast
Of past, extruded facts will last.

It may be worth bearing in mind,
However, that this era’s new,
In which scientists care to find
What’s left behind, and could end soon.