Earthprints
Like wrinkles in a lifted face,
each sidewalk crack betrays
the grand design of urban
masterminds, and plays
against their perpendiculars,
poking fun at angles. Right
or wrong, I laugh along
(from safely round the corner),
while sifting meaning from
the ground and bounding mortar.
When this earth by discreet
shifts beneath concrete is
revealed, a hidden language
is heard, essential knowledge
uncovered—every fracture
an ancient pattern, each fissure
apocalyptic, and every rift
a tattle on the planet
like a fingerprint
escaped the glove
the burglar wore to hide it.
The signs are the earth is still
beneath us, and we, with our
pretty lines and grids, have hidden
little of our gritted history,
or of the groaning future
we thought had passed us by.
