I am looking for the places
   that were there before the sand.

What is strange about this country,
   sphinxes and pyramids on a duny plain,
       is what emerges from the hidden.

Once they looked ordinary in their real setting,
   not desert, but a green,
       a populated world,

and now covered by sand
   its peaks are hints
       we try to make sense of,
          imagining we long for it.

We long for something all right
   and dream of finding a sand map to lead us there
       hoping that under the desert is where it is.

If not that, what are we longing for?
   What lost world? But what if
       it is for something new, not old,
          the not-yet-born?

And even with a sand map, an accurate one,
   say you follow it, trustingly,
       and discovered that buried world
          with its glories, and horrors,

then what do you have?
   Even knowing what was there,
       following a program of limited excavation
          won’t bring it back,

won’t make sands that cover it blow away,
   make those figures on friezes come to life,
       and the cataclysmic scenes replay.

For after you have found it,
   after all that searching and working,
       you’ll have to look at your life and see
          that nothing has changed—

so, having dealt with the past as best you could
   you might declare it is better
       to know than not to know,

but having used up the best of your strength,
   weary now, you must live with what you are,
       and even if it is desert, where you are,
          making the best of it.