Taking Stock

What was saved:
our ephemera.  What was lost:
trusted, enduring granite basics
that, somehow, wore away.

We’d long been
idiot kings who enjoyed
the thrones
for as long as we had them,

then scrapped them
for firewood and
short cash.  Now,
sitting with the remnants,

I wonder: what was it
we thought we were ruling?
Sovereigns of vapor and paper,
lords of all we purveyed,

now that the stock’s
played out, the shelves emptied,
who could say what it all meant?
I stare at the petty archives

and tell myself that somewhere,
what was lost is still carved in rock
everlasting.  I love that kind of lie;
it’s familiar as anything I’ve ever believed.