Things Missed

Every now and then I make it a point to go 
without knowing to these places, try to discover 
a view of my own, be surprised, have 
an experience uncluttered by history or the facts.
I try to imagine my way to a bit of truth or the 
answer to some awkward childhood riddle. 

I went to Giza once this way, entered the wind-dusted
space, dodged the thronging hawkers, slid sideways
past the harried shirtsleeve tugs of the pleading guides,
as they offered to sell me a day or two of knowing. 

I lingered at Cheop’s boat, counted the oars, 
thought of his trip to the longer side of eternity.
I measured step by step the footprint of the pyramids
and climbed on a few of the metered blocks— 
wondered how long they’d been there, 
how much longer they would stand. 
I considered the angles and the sides, tried 
to recall their geometry and physics, as explained
by Mrs. de Jong at Brigham Young Junior High. 

With my shoe I shuffled the underside of the sand.
I exchanged smiles with the camels, complained
with them about our thirst. I curled my lips, 
bared my teeth, made a low bellow as they do, 
and thought of the crumpled, sepia portrait 
of my grandparents riding theirs fifty years before.
Then, I squinted into the west-leaning sun 
as the day began telling me to leave. 
I went to Giza once this way and failed to find 
the nose-broken Sphinx haunching coyly 
just beyond the brown edge of the afternoon 
shadows there, a little down and to the left 
of where ignorance had taken me that day.