Over and Against It, Just a Little Beyond
We read that book we could not understand.
Found locked in a broken chest, buried
beneath a mound of gravel, no
mold or mildew tainted it.
Just yellow.
Yellow leaves that mystified us
as we read aloud in a tongue
none of us knew, sprawled in the shadows beneath the great rocks
in that sandy place. One of our little friends,
who's dead now, said she thought it was
religious. Others, older, thought
it the unshackled cant of a diplomat,
despondent, raving poignant cyphers in hoary
gilt age, having accomplished
squat. I think now
it was an Almagest, a starry index
spread silent against us, sidereal reckonings
made secret in plain sight, through violet letters
on wizen pages
beneath dim, dust dizzy
light.