At the British Museum

In truth, crowds of the living

interest me more today
than the British Museum's
superbly lit and curated
tablets, weapons, hordes,
clocks, and deities.

A constant flow
of self-selected people
moves toward and away from
the table where I sip coffee
and scribble. A Chinese
mother breast-feeds her
child in the cafe. Teenagers

from every culture rankle
at the forced parental trudge
through these tombs (one
young woman sees my
notebook & pen and smiles:
another writer). Here come
the tall, the old, the short, the
chaired, the sexy, the enwrapped,
the rapt, the aching-arthritic,
the dazzled, the done-in,
the spongy voluptuous--

the everybody from everywhere
who take charge of idiom,
clothes, beliefs, behavior,
and most importantly:
secret thoughts, quick
connections, living impulse--
those dear seeds of civilizations.