Degrees of Permanence

a road submerged

in yellow-brown water

algae overgrown, painting

asphalt slimy green, slick

under toes of swimmers

standing on it

just to say they did

while others float

oblivious

to what’s beneath

a mining town

in ruins, revived:

grass foundations, walls

of tumbling brick and crawling vines

a bakery, a courthouse—

forgeries with electric fires

robotic prisoners—

a people’s last attempt

at molding an identity

an ancient city

mummified in ash—

weapons, pottery,

mosaics, houses—

productive destruction

a portrait of antiquity

beheld and admired

as archaeologists stitch

the holes torn by

displacement in time

a temple erect

on a limestone base

and marble columns

once crumbling

from neglect, wars, invaders,

now conserved, guarded, hoarded,

speculations made

on faded color, missing metopes,

a stolen goddess statue,

replicas made far away

mere shadows

decorative misinterpretations

of Classical Greece

expanding echoes