Abandoned Homes

White feathers of ash;
slight heap in the hearth
stirs, settles, then stirs again.
We walk up to look at them:
no clues there as to how long ago
the burners disappeared; bricks
are cold, ash subtle and soft and
empty of meaning to our eyes.

We don’t know anything
about this abandoned house,
or about any of the masses of them
we’ve seen boarded up and left behind
during our endless travels
through this once great land.

Like thousands of nomads
in the last one hundred thousand
nomadic years, we’ve enough curiosity
to wonder at the silent graves
of the fires of those who went before us,

enough to determine
if the hearth and chimney
are sound enough
to build our new fire
on the undead ashes
of their last one,

not enough
to want to learn
why they’re gone.