The Inverted Archaeologist Poem by Daniel P Martin

The stone-age man kisses his winter-bitten family goodbye,
The cold and weary community members,
Give fond and grateful parting words,
As he sets off on his time-defying mission of Hope.

He lands, like a penguin dropped unwittingly in the Sahara,
Totally bemused by his surroundings,
His surroundings sharing the sentiment,
An outsider, in every possible respect of the meaning.

His eyes are inescapably drawn to the wondrous sights,
Structures and beings, surely not of this world.
Where his descendants roam freely without fear,
But alas, equally devoid of love and compassion.

Gathering together his senses, he roams the barren land,
Filled with barren souls, living barren lives,
Each radiating a bitter coldness,
Vastly overpowering the effect of the tepid climate,

And so our hero returns, his mission firmly aborted,
The warming embrace of his compatriots rejuvenates him,
With a sorrowful air, he recounts a tale of nothingness,
For there is less to fear in nothingness, than what he has seen.