TEOTIHUACAN

     The monster gods have faded with the crush

     of buried years and long remembered suns.

     They rise like rusty sea waves on the sand,

     completely out of place, illegible,

     unfathomed and yet newly understood.

     Seasons of glory, distant age and youth

     all wrapped in mystery, eternal shades

     of pagan dreams and pagan bursts of pride.

        We are the interlopers, this we know

     but have no heart for tears or for remorse,

     too long ago for conscience to abide,

     these endless ruins rising from the dust.

     They lost it all at once like human life,

     were spared the ignominy of decay.

JAY COHEN

From Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1974