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Spiral Hill--White Sand and Peat Blocks
Graphite and Brown Ink on Paper. Robert Smithson, 1971
Ziggurat of Babylon, Tower of Babel
Terraced pyramid in the left-hand corner,
Then a double line which divides the paper
Almost equally in half
Like a horizon in which there is slightly more land than sky.
When I was a child, I looked everywhere for burial mounds,
I knew about barrows built over kings
Whole Viking ships covered by a wave of earth.
This was in New Jersey in the Fifties--
A place flat as Holland and settled by the Dutch
Where sea-level was only three steps down off the boardwalk.
I hoped that every little rise or hill
Covered in grass contained a warrior, hands clasped.
Late at night I'd read
About Egyptian pyramids and Aztec tombs,
What the Mayans threw down a well
Or the great mounds of Ohio.
In the sky there is also a spiral uncoiling
Shaped like a snail uncurling
Across the right-hand quadrant of the page.
Some people say there is a difference between a labyrinth and a maze
That a labyrinth has false turns
While a maze leads straight to the center.
I have read many books with "maze" and "labyrinth" in the title
But have been unable to confirm this.
When I go to visit my sister in Ohio
We go to the mall, not the mounds.
What mounds? she says.
Last night I dreamed you left me
That recurring dream
Whose meaning must be something else.
I make you swear you'll never leave
In the kitchen nonetheless.
How can I be sure
We are speaking the same language
As I brew coffee
This day's syntax and schematic?
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