Anthropology

Anthropology, what use are you

in these days of singular, weekly visits to the market

seeing only masked faces searching

for a carton of eggs, a can of tomato soup, a bunch of celery stalks?

Anthropology, can you tell us why

the pueblo people deserted the Chacoan plain,

leaving the intricate star-viewing portals,

the footways between settlements?

Anthropology, will you show a way to leave

the crisis of burnt forests and homes sprawling into their depths,

of the orca carrying her dead baby in the poison waters of the Salish Sea,

of the puffin bird becoming only a cartoon on a cereal box?

Anthropology, you sweep off the dust of the ancient,

speak of cultures and evolution,

of tools made and kinships formed,

can you tell us the way as we dim the stars we once navigated by?