We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, Heritage Day.

 

I stepped out of the rain
into an Etruscan tomb.

It was a long walk
and a long way yet,

but the map said
they were here,

the old graves
on some farmer’s land.

Between tilled fields,
a shaded space

and now the rain
in grey-fall from the leaves.

I stopped alone, ducked in,
one small step down,

a coomb of earth and stone.
You stood outside

and waited while
I breathed the history bodily.

Soil, leaf, moist
must, membrane memory

and somewhere here, the bones.
My own limbs aching

from the marching day
and now this dusky interval,

an indentation, swerving
off the rutted track.

You call. I turn, step back,
re-join you to press on

between the leaning trees,
ancient coordinates,

each dip and hollow on the path
still slowly filling up with rain.