from Archaeology

14.   

			 for the workers in the field

How does it feel to burn
	for us
who have lived our days in the caves
	of privilege
where heat and sun are pinched off softly
	by the earth’s crooked throat
and our voices are served
	separately
on trays of rich silence

You sweat with conviction
	proud and bitter
Stare the sun down in its hottest eye
	if you think such a duel 
diminishes us

But where are the ordinary 
	angles of sun
in this absolute darkness, in the artifice 
	of stone-washed light?
How will we tell the tone of the wind
	in a tomb 
where nothing stirs, where no rock bends
	or gives to touch?
And will we come out the same, 
	to the same wet forest, 
the same rooted paths that brought us
	 to this shelter?
Or will we emerge to a burnt mound,
	destruction that feeds 
on the feet and hands of children,
	the village in ruins again?