by Sally Zakariya
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| This floor tile imported from Turkey and installed during a home renovation contains what is believed to be a cross section of an ancient human jawbone. (Courtesy of Reddit user Kidipadeli75 via The Washington Post) |
Check the counters and floors
check all the travertine tiles
Look for signs of the old ones
reaching up through time
slivers of bone
shards of teeth
Imagine the beginning: a natural
hot spring somewhere in Turkey
Layer after layer of plants and animals
trapped in the mud and fossilized
Mammoths, rhinos, giraffes,
deer, reptiles—even humans—
embedded in the travertine
Look down and count the years—
a million or more
Each step we take on earth, we walk
on the past
Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 100 publications and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her publications include All Alive Together, Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, and When You Escape. She edited and designed a poetry anthology Joys of the Table and blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.