Twisting and turning,

The water pushes into the cavern,

Digging it’s damp fingers into the rock.

The bones are disturbed,

Pulled from their slumber, funneled along,

Crashing and splitting as they strike each turn.

Oh, the water continues to rise!

Skulls flushed from their hypogeums as memories

Crowd the low corridors, as martyrs return,

Hovering in the labyrinth, reaching vaporously

For decaying fingertips and lost sternums,

Hopelessly drifting, yet unafraid.

The starkness of nature’s betrayal

Refuses to recede when the waters go.

What is left but thick sludge and shattered bones,

Trampled dreams, crushed antiquity!

The footsteps of history buried -

Destroyed and crumbled under the weight of the world.