In the Caucasus, a man my age
on his side, knees brought to his chest,
the remains of flowers scattered around him.
Grape hyacinth, which I used to plant in fall
To lie beneath the dead and frozen soil, and in thawing
send up small fragrant blooms in spring’s first days;
Centaurea, its azure blossoms like the sky
over the Tigris, and hollyhocks, their leaves
dotted with rust. Rough fibrous stalks bent low with wind,
the ragged storms will break them off to bloom
along the ground. A few leaves for a cough in the next world.
And groundsel. Now a weed, the bane of farmers,
how precious it might have been before the farms!
Bright yellow stars, and seed heads a wisp of white
And blown like souls to land no one knows where.
I once imagined them surrounding him, a bier
of wildflowers, or a blanket of them
and religion no one knows, Aurochs and Bear, or else
A natural, pragmatic sentiment to hearten them,
and songs not heard in sixty thousand years to salve the grief
or deepen it, tears from deeply recessed eyes
beneath proud, strong browridges.
Jirds lived nearby, it seems, close kin to gerbils
that burrow and cache seeds in rocky soil, and there are those
who scoff at sentiment, who say it may have been
a simple interment without a tear, or one wracked with pain
but lacking flowers, and the jirds
dug into soft grave soil to bury food, pollen coming off their coats.
It matters, but it matters not. Six thousand years
or sixty thousand years, grief lies deep in the Iraqi soil,
runs off down stony hills.
That desolation of the heart in rills
down the Euphrates, mixed with pain at Shatt-Al-Arab
and out to sea.
In the Caucasus, a man my age
and six hundred centuries lay sheltered on his side
until they found him. They wrapped his bones
in plaster, cast him out, and now he is lost,
scattered in an indignity of looting.
