If you own the technology
and are willing to
risk resisting arrest,
or, if you have the imagination,
go stand in the middle of Wall Street,
maybe near the Bull.
Dig a Mitchnerian shaft straight down
to discover, layer over layer, life.

Mine down to the wall the Dutch built
to keep out the “savages”,

or to the often peaceful Manhattan villages
before the white man came and
stole their land for
24$ worth of beads,

down past to the campfire
of the first nomad who found
a peaceful, quiet place
and stayed a while to fish.

Dig further past where
that huge, frozen river wore away
to create New York on one side,
the Palistades on the other…

My wife and I have moved now,
from 100 miles north of that
pre-historic camp-fire in Battery Park
to the south facing shore line of
southern North Carolina,
where, for safety in The War,
Army engineers cut the water way
against Nazi torpedoes.

We have dug down through our
boxed and binned memories,
divested and donated what was partable
and now, sit in our newly constructed,
decorated living room, watching the sunlight
beam through the sky-lights,
two spot lights on us and the couch,
illuminating the changes in us
and the texture in the air.

Together, we follow the light,
dying across the room,
through to sunset,
and the coming of the night.