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Here is a slightly edited version of one of my NaPo poems formerly titled "Heros Seek Treasures"

Seekers

An ancient map depicts
the original entrance to Lascaux,
now the images make sense
but the message is uncertain.

The sun sets just so
between two rocks at a certain time
on the appointed day: a ray
indicates The Golden Way
but in the end, it leads nowhere.

The rumored city where all is said
to have begun is finally located  
sunk offshore from lands where
everyone went mad.  

And the melting ice reveals the bones, 
and the Voyager sent home
messages of rocks and gas,
and the last passenger pigeon died
while sixty scientists in attendance cried.

And all our thoughts and prayers go out...


Martha, the Very Last Passenger Pigeon - The Atlantic




 

Enjoying this even more, second time around.
I've a different perspective this time too, and probably not the one you intended. We've been trying to understand the past by piecing together tiny fragments and clues. In the future (assuming nothing is lost) there'll be too much information to properly understand the past. Even now, there can be too much information to find out the truth. Imagine how difficult it'll be after 2,000 years of accumulated data.
As for your poem. I think you're suggesting what we still have we should treasure and save. Not to ignore the past...but to learn from it. If that's the intended sentiment, you've laid it out in a thought-provoking and interesting way.
  
 

All that work to save Martha's carcass, when after we no longer needed passenger pigeons we tried hard to wipe them all out! We preserve evidence of these milestones long after we've forgotten why they mattered to the first seekers who created them; what they were all for. Why do we seek them now?

Enjoyed this, Linda.

Jackie

 

Thank you both, Colm and Jackie, for the read and your comments which contribute to the broader meaning in this one.

My intention is probably not as deep as some interpretations. I chose a few examples of ways in which our forebears have used religious myth and ritual to try to know the unknowable. Or, as a theologian might say, "try to define human relationship to the cosmos by accessing it's power" Looking back none of it really works in modern consciousness to resolve ultimate mystery.

In the meantime, our planet warms, melting ice reveals nothing that helps resolve our existential angst, nor does space exploration. 

The passenger pigeon is a fine example of a tendency to ignore problems until it's too late. And our current religious practices--"thoughts and prayers" do nothing to alleviate the tragedies of war, inhumane practices, failure to take responsibility for the health of our planet. In short--thoughts and prayers are as effective as crawling through a tunnel to paint bison on a cave wall or some ritual as a season turns marked by the position of the sun.

The lands where everyone went mad? Could be anywhere.

Linda. I enjoyed both your poem and editorial, especially the last, astute, paragraph. I know nothing about carrier pigeons but do recognize a good metaphor on occasion.
A nicely-turned out and semi-whimsical narrative. One point of interest - some of these equinox oriented megalithic structures don't line up with the sun so well anymore and this is ascribed to precessional variation over (much) time.

     

Thank you, Mark,

Seems to me it's not a settled issue--a different tilt to earth's axis or continental drift?



 

What a splendidly illustrative diagram! Yes, indeed...

Mark, your comment on the precession of axis sent me down a rabbit hole. I haven't had enough time to get a grip on it, but I see statements to the effect that there has been a measurable (and perhaps fastest in planetary history) change as the polar caps melt. I'm so glad to have yet another thing to worry about.