a shovelful of sand overturned 
under a searing relentless sun 
western egypt
and the near futile search for the remnants 
of civilization lost to the ages 
antiquity personified in the turning of a
shovel of sand
a battle against the ceaseless winds that 
attempt to fill that which has been evacuated

what is it in the motions of man that compel 
him to persist in the face of formidable odds 
of some sort of dubious success 
to search in the wilderness for the fragments 
of those who have preceded us only to 
shed some light on what we have evolved 
into over the course of these many millennium?

i am a twenty - first century man under no sense 
of illusion of what i am doing in overturning 
these minute parcels of desert 
yet
in the quest there is much to be learned 
not only of an elusive antiquity 
but about myself set to the task of persevering 
with a dedication that only blind faith 
can tell me to pursue