Rosetta Stones spoke nothing of
these ancient symbols, what they meant:

inscriptions
observed everywhere

their mystic scriptures etched in stone
by diamond, fire, metal, bone

in syntax
stranger with each pass

around adornments on the glass

discoursing
from some tongue unknown.

What did they say? What have they shown,
these artifacts new hands unearthed?

Was it of love?
For death or birth?

Each dig augmented mystery
and questioned present history

and seemed to warn
of more to mind

beyond what most presumed to find
in erstwhile verse an age erased

old myths or math
time had displaced

then buried for some thousand years,
preserving what would disappear

to be retrieved,
revived again.

To what effect, no one can say.
What truths are gained or lost each day

for centuries
or evermore?

What futures lie behind those doors
we've yet to open toward the past?

Will we rejoice
or be aghast?