Posted: Jul 19, 2008, 11:49 AM CST

Moss-covered, forgotten,
Tar-paper shack, rotten.
Piles of stones
The height of a man,
Who did this thing?
I look deeper and
I begin to understand.
In this glade,
Surrounded by these stacks,
I am curious,
And I start to dig for facts.
Chinamen, they came like moths
To the flame of precious yellow metal.
By hand the moved the Earth itself
Toiling like Hercules
For two dollars a month.
I look at the mountain they moved
Broken into these corpseless cairns,
And I get a dim vision of men
Who built the Great Wall.
And the depth of commitment
It took to leave behind
Two thousand years of culture
For thirty-five dollars
Per ounce of gold.