A Much Earlier People

Nothing spooks you like the signs
Someone or someones like you
Lived here before, altered

This very landscape, these woods.
This hill that hides a crushed town,
This ruined miner’s cabin,

This wall between two nowheres
Dividing nothing to you,
Green overthrowing both sides,

But still stone wall, and built well,
Better than you’d know how to—
These things require narratives

About earlier people,
Giants if necessary,
Demons, even, demigods,

Careful archaeology,
Anything to make you feel
At home again, since your home

Isn’t here, where those like you
Lived, maybe those who were you,
Maybe you yourself, the you

You’ve forgotten who made this.
Your home’s the story you know
That explains, for you, all this.