En-nigaldi-Nanna’s Peculiar Collection of Ancient Curiosities

Maybe not the first
Museum as such,
But proof reverence

For the revenants
Of dynasties past
Ran strong long before

Antiquarians
Or your sciency
Archaeologists.

So, maybe after?
Imagine someone
Whose values you can’t

Really imagine
Rummaging through mounds
Of Met or Louvre

Or whatever’s left
Of the rapacious
British Museum.

Will they find it quaint,
Almost endearing,
That people hoarded

The hoards they’re raiding?
Not if true looters
Get there before them.

Forever After Something

Wishes have always

Outnumbered our days.

Buzzards and flies on

A road-killed raccoon,

Life on life on life,

Don’t look as placid

As free-range cattle

Grazing the long grass.

The Pañcatantra

Repeatedly says

That meat-eaters and

Grass-eaters don’t mix,

But of course they do.

Everything mixes—

Long grass will grow well

From soil still holding

Buzzard nitrogen,

And that raccoon lived

As an omnivore.

If it lives, it tries

Hard to keep living,

Ingesting what works,

Systems in systems.

Curse is, you want more

Than you’ll get, of course.

Original

Unlikelier than any

Of the theories would be if

Some one individual

Just up and started talking,

Say, one evening by a fire,

One afternoon on a hunt,

One morning gathering roots.

Is anyone listening?

Those were the first words spoken

In the imagination,

Followed by grumbling complaints.

Or maybe it was a poem,

Something chanted, a loud wish

For something to be granted,

And, when that thing was granted,

Everyone was envious

And began chanting themselves,

And that was human language.

Better yet, just muttering,

Not in the least bit social,

Eventually overheard,

The original ear worm.

So then the muttering spread,

And this is where it all led.

Allegorical Nineveh

What’s one person’s defacement
Is another person’s face.

A largely illiterate
Imperial city, host

To a massive library
Funded by a ruthless king,

A human being’s body,
Young compared to the stories

And documents being stacked
In the palace recesses.

Then it all burns. Citizens
Not burned along with it flee.

The heat of the destruction
Preserves heaps of buried words,

But the city is done for,
And the royal family’s gone.

That garden-party carving
Of the royals sipping wine

By a tree decorated
With the decapitated

Head of a vanquished rival
Hung by a thong through his chin

Has been left behind, defaced,
The royals’ features gouged out.

Not the face of the trophy.
He’s still hanging there, as is.

Earn Little

Two moral hazards
To watch for: doing
Too much good; too much
And easy access
To what tempts you most.

The first will set you
Skew-whiff, unbalanced.
The doing-gooders,
Like the guilt-soaked, tend
To compensation.

The second’s simpler.
If the cookie jar
Is kept near to hand
And full, you’ll raid it
Hardly noticing.

Common decency,
The ability
To stay kind and not
Make too much trouble,
Teeters with context.

Moderation’s not
Saintly in itself,
But be too saintly,
You’ll be more tempted
To a wickedness;

More and more tempted,
You’ll more easily
And often give in.
That’s the old riddle
Unraveled, reason

Why the best people,
Esteemed near holy,
Boast the worst scandals—
Hadn’t they earned it?
And where was the harm?

Chalk

It’s better when the desks are empty,
The other students gone, and you’re left
Alone, one nine-paned window open

On the sunny, green-leaved afternoon
Outside, a small breeze slipping inside,
Dissipating the strong smell of chalk.

You’re sensing in present tense, but this
Can’t be present, can it? The desk chairs
And the old wooden window, maybe,

But that memory of chalk’s just you,
Elderly person in a schoolroom,
Triggered by emptiness and windows

To remember how it felt better,
When you were young, to be the last one
At the end of the day, the last one.