Shakespeare Galaxy Poem by Cathryn Hankla

Exhumed from a dripping cave
still in formation,
sealed in clay jars,
carried by donkey down rocky paths
to a scientific hut draped with sun-blocking
parachute cloth—

The paleontologist
peers up from his bone cache
in diffuse light beneath his tent
to crack the jar with a chisel,
uncork with pliers—
the last shard of text.

Etched on papyrus: tragedy, history,
each comedy with sides splitting
and curling, the complete works
of a Shakespeare, hitherto unknown.
Oh God I could be bounded
in a nutshell, and count myself…

The manuscripts appear to date
from a time prior to a time
out of joint, long before England,

Ben Johnson or Maxwell, back to a storied era
when dinosaurs were great thinkers
and infinite space itself king.

So, who has been this other Shakespeare,
this impostor, simulacrum, bad dream,
this prince of twisting syntax?
Whose stinging hackwork
have we sown through centuries,
what smiling villain have we not slain?

And after this seminal Shakespeare,
of course another Shakespeare
is waiting to emerge. Our legacy besmeared
and besmirched, nothing but endless
plagiarized chestnuts stuck in memory,
copies of copies, copies of copies.