101922

Painting Found in a Roofless Museum


Red sun rising, darkly mottled,
huge beyond the dry sea bed,
featureless save for
a few slumped piles of stone
(shaped by nature or by hands,
one cannot be sure)
amid dun drifts of silt.
Foreground: three travelers,
species unknown, stumbling
towards the largest stony mound,
pack animal in tow, back piled
with shapeless bundles.
Nothing else; no roads, trails,
cities, vegetation;
no moon or satellite overhead.
The painting, dated at more than
four billion years, a tale
of hope abandoned,
of a dying ancient world,
is mounted behind glass
and under lights, in this great hall
where we exchange our vows.