a man came upon the ruins of a hall
someone had had marble dragged
thousands of miles into that frozen land
not just marble, but ebony, cedar, and oak
and built an enormous Viking hall
where no Vikings ever roamed
nor any other men perhaps
except the builders
inside, at enormous trestle tables
benches held seated statues of heroes
Medes, Persians, Assyrians
Chaldeans, Lydians, Greeks, Romans
Norsemen, Rus, Danes, Angles, and Saxons
Mongols, Han, and Japanese
Soninke, Mali. Songhay
and at least a dozen more tribes he did not know
all colors represented, so many feature types
so many fierce men at ease with one another
their weapons stacked nearby
each with his wine cup at hand
he had to think this some mad man's Valhalla
heroes from everywhere
celebrating their lives well lived
but after their deaths
when no one could expect more of them
they could relax
so say the notebooks
the explorer carried miles back to civilization
and got there mad, drooling and raving
no one ever found his ruins
not even ruins of his ruins
the tundra is a wide and deep expanse
unsuitable for stone, and wood, and man
although man refuses to believe that
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