is solution
to architecture

        bone and stone

conform
briefly
then fall away

        [As] the foot
exposed
seldom changes
in appearance,
physical as it is
proper,

water [will] rise
running east and west.

        the earth ruind

60 feet
of earth 50 feet
now 5

        i see your
surface
all
trim all
wall and form

features I found
in inches

        I lie

near perpendicular
and smoke
        The rose face
the inner circle

the neck
flush

        Outside

the south side I stand
upright

the compass point
coincid[ing] with the universe

pass
over these
ancient acres

the tongue

        i am able in early July
to lie down

        twenty-four rows of
        me
        and each one so
broken and weathered
as to require excavation

i found

The buried man
we found

in the presence

of conjectured occupants
trac[ed] upon the
here and now

I scatter ash
in the corner

This seems of some importance

these layers
thes
many dark layers

this drift dark
streak along the earth

i held

        a pot
top to bottom

        a stone axe
to my face

        i held out
without breaking

        back back

        I [learned
to] take meaning hard
into the cave,
judge it–

It lies.
It is thin.

I appear abruptly
then go.

        absence
and nearness to destruction is

[a] most decorative leavetaking

        I found purposes of repair
several miles west
farther west

a spring
and another
Converge
then fall

        The irregular
court rough ruin

The well dressed are
well preserved

and free

        their great concerns longer
and wider [than ours]

        before
I was not able to form an opinion

my cattle Brain selected few
broken and weathered
thoughts To Think

 
Note: This work is an erasure of “A Further Study of Prehistoric Small House Ruins in the San Juan Watershed” by T. Mitchell Prudden.

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