of the long-dead sea makes the bed
fishy carcasses
spiky sea urchins
cracked seashells
sharks' teeth
are once more rendered workable
sandwich-squashed
in layered limestone
it's the sought after stone
for the carvers of idols
and the cutters of milestones.
And yet -
the dusty clinks and taps
of the workaday chisels
and the heavy groans
of the heave-ho pushcarts
lugging the loads
to the ends of the tracks
are more than a wave away
from the world where the tide has turned
and is green.
Old blocks now rest
on beds of camomile
as cogs and handles rust
entangled and rosehipped in brambles
where heavy elders
loaded with drooping fruit
sigh and droop
over an old sea's bed.
Abandoned
below these wine-drenched
waterline
slopes
columns of white-eyed men
glare all ways
into the yawning skies
and the infinite tides and times.
