Ancient Fragment on the Theory of Ruin Value

I will erect no monument, engrave no marble stone,

For mountains have been whittled down to mark forgotten dead—

the earth reclaims their [       ], the stones remember in our stead;

I will erect no monument to bury years of bone.

And I will build no edifice that, ivy-overgrown,

might urge the young to follow where their ancestors once tread—

no mystifying megalith that leaves too much unsaid—

no, I will build no edifice to last when [            ].

 

But I will write these lines, and through my verse confide

our story here—in strains more soft and deft

than monument or edifice:

Here we lived lost, loved, and [             ]

—when all that’s left

is this.