You Might Not Think This Story's Important Now, But
KG Newman

at the Mesa Verde dwellings Fante reads aloud
and I kick up yellow dust just to weigh down
his words, keep them around

a pinch longer. But with each second
there seems to be less dirt
to disrupt than before,

and I sense Fante's voice
sailing unheard across the canyon,
sentences of wisdom in collusion with

the mighty wind of time. When he raises his tone
to offset the breeze and address
the poet that is myself,

the Anasazi return to their earth of old
to find cavates caved in,
the Palace sandstone shaved away.

I demand the canyon to tell me
who I am and what this is all about. And I try to envision
Art at its inception—before
 
Fante's words were lost to the gust,
before nature strong-armed the Palace--
I try to envision children,

many millennia from now,
with shoes stained in an
intelligently yellow way.