Your car parks also bear the bones of kings
We may not know their names or where they lie
Their tragedies, or how they came to die,
But there they are, beneath our daily things.
All Earth holds history, and it lies near,
Though jumbled, partly known, and part forgot
To time and chance and memory and rot.
But layered lives lie close, who lived right here.
Kings, poets, fools, boatbuilders, leaders, led…
We need no pilgrimage, they’re never far.
Lost stories dot the landscapes where we tread.
Conquests, new language, centuries, no bar…
We live surrounded by the fabled dead
Remember them, next time you park your car.
24th May 2016, Chicago.
