Sonnet #372

 The stones of ancient houses fall and become

Homes again for moss and bird and snake and friends

Who tend to gardens green and gather bones

Of ancient things to spill them artfully again

Upon the tended ground, pretend the new is old

And gather energy of masons long forgotten

Into these museums of gathered things, a cold

And decadent sort of tomb without dead men in

So we can cheer the temples without their gods

The coin without the king, the touched things here

Where no one touches them, and we nod

Upon the memory of man, a story accumulated here

Where we recline in green, commission art from pain

And sell them to the robber barons who buy and explain