A dig can have a tell-tale sign.
If you know for what you look.
That special find in the sandy nook.
The artifact to fill our space-time line.
An item dropped from far time away.
Covered by ages of sand of late.
Pulled up again in digger’s grate.
Apothegmatic visitor seeing the light of day.
A synecdoche find giving part for whole.
A shard rich with artful meaning.
A trifle holding a universe teeming.
Broken fragment with fiery-glazed soul.
The universe in a grain of sand.*
A hint of logos’ eternal hand.
*“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of innocence
Francis D. Conlon is a retired and recovering school teacher. For the past 18 years, he has worked as a seasonal river ranger, and as a boat inspector for ANS (aquatic nuisance species), at Yampa River State Park and at Elkhead Reservoir outside nearby Hayden, Colorado, in northwestern Colorado.