POEM - LOVE STORY NO 1

The Archeologist.

He walks the fields,
circling the ancient burial mound,
grassed over and ringed
by elders and hawthorn,
barbed crowns around
an eroded tumuli,
that might hold within its testes,
shields, caskets or ships,
he kneels in ribs left by ploughs,
passes earth from hand to hand,
examines texture, composition,
odd coins and shards
bound in clods greasy and wet,
this claggy soil absorbs his fingers,
moulds to creases, marks and veins,
prints curls around the fist
of his energetic imaginings,
about the past, your history that fashions a form
which may describe you,
sometimes he sees you
as a god with phallic power,
sometimes he sees you
as a snake wriggling in his grasp,
sometimes he sees you
as an imp that’s hard to catch,
sometimes he sees you
as a pot of gold found beneath floorboards,
sometimes he sees you
as an empty cupboard he remembers being full,
sometimes he sees you
as a movie with slow gratuitous silences,
sometimes he sees you
in a half full cappuccino dusted with cinnamon,
of these he makes
an intoxicating dynasty,
that is never as near to you
as the walls, floors, windows
and recorded artefacts
that he shares a room with.