Peering into the inverse pyramid
Of a miles-wide strip copper mine,
I listened, one time, to loudspeakers
Replaying a looped recording in tourist
Languages, such as German, such as English,
Such as Mandarin. The metallic echoes
Bounced around the scalloped absences
And would have kept on doing so, whether
I or any other pair of human ears were near
Or far, far away. What are we saying, any
Of us who artfully arrange our strange phrases,
In hopes they’ll echo in excavated landscapes
When we’re gone, when no one is there?
I couldn’t understand a word of the Mandarin,
But the whole holed holy mountain
Continued to mechanically converse.
No comments:
Post a Comment