A Bewilderment: Archaeology Of The Mind Poem by Richard Blanch

What has happened? I have wondered and wandered. On the wall
A painting catches my eye of a place, of an entrance.
I was there. Now out of memory quietly it calls,
As archetypes will, I suppose, when they are needed,
When the soul works itself past turmoil and trance,
When the unresolved takes its spade to the unweeded
Bits and pieces of minds and thoughts and now
And then and perhaps and if and though.....

There is a doorway. It is very, very old
And through it tourists wander. They have been told
Of three thousand years. I remember the quiet when the few
Had gone. Now I listen for what I want to know.

The stone is strangely pink, a suggestive hue
Flushing in the middle of the day, and a glow
When night falls. What hovers in the sound of silence?

There is a path beyond. I pause now as I paused then.
But for what? Something will come. Something will blend
With the clarity- the air is so clear here. Some clue
Must be nearing the archway. Some dream from the gate
Of horn? Something surprising? Something old, something new?
Something the archaeologist of minds has found, something I can grow
Into an explanation? So many years pass here and fold
Layer and level of knowing and happening into the mould,
Into the hot dust: contradiction, shock, disclosure, suddenness-
Long ago now sifted, now dug out into the air, the air that is a caress
On my hot skin, on my hot mind. Airing history. So I sit
And look through the gap, past the crumbling stone
Onto the path of the past and I wait
For the clarity of time to walk along the sand; for the bone
Of event to flesh out; for the layers to become one.

But minds are not earth. Artefacts are not actions. What is done
Has been done. Why stay here? We are left with ourselves. That wind has blown.
And what is left is better. No need for the spade. We move on.