from Archaeology 

9.  

The     tools     are     these:  
shovels, picks, trowels, screens; 

enough pure water to float your brain; 
the camaraderie of shared conviction to stave off 
  
sun and boredom; and a mind of denial, to believe 
that history is buried, that it is this hard to find, 

that it is not standing casually over your pit with a gun, 
a toothpick, and a chain of command, loosely forged, 

that it is not hanging clothes washed in the river 
on a line behind the squat farmhouse,

that it is not woven into the shirt you wear
as you scratch for the place where it lies, 

below ground, under foot, sown too deep 
to show its flawed, fitful stitching.