Archaeology Poem by Clive Culverhouse

Walking along a road, diagonally,
through someone's house briefly
and back out where there isn't a door
across their vegetable patch and
eventually over the bones of some buried
unknowns.
Cows are currently grazing in someone's
hallway, while a tree grows in the kitchen.
As I walk, I trample through a Roman bath
where in a different time a rotund, well fed
Roman is relaxing in his water.
My next foot down stamps the hand
of a warrior who has just fallen to the sword
As he, in his battledress and beard,
lays in someone else's hearth
where a herb-filled stew is being cooked.
I tread effortlessly over walls and pits,
rooms and murder scenes, above oceans
and below oceans.
These layers of time leave layers of life
which layer the ground silently screaming
voices and echoes of stories once told.
There will then be a layer to come
where someone will tread their feet
over my life, my house and my bed.