There is in this process
a digging and tossing
to reach the layer
that secrets the path
beneath arrogant assumptions
and perfumed versions
of what one actually said.
Despite painstaking care
tiny fossilized fragments,
long buried, free fall and crackle
into a fine mist co-mingling with
raised voices, scrambling
the navigation system,
defying sifter and brush.
Oh, the tedium,
the repetition,
the familiar refrains
colliding like tiny, tired molecules
with vast distances
yet to cover.
Perhaps it is the digging itself,
the tossing, the burrowing,
that is the prize,
a process honing the skills
to reconfigure roughly hewn pieces
tossed into an untitled puzzle.