Stooped figures in rags
moving slowly at dusk toward light,
casting shuffling shadows.
Digging tools lie on the ground still warm
from hands that cleaned babies, boiled potatoes,
closed the gate, and fluffed straw beds.
Smell of wet, freshly turned earth.
All of humanity is a black-and-white photograph
century after century, faces looking
out of shadows at us, nameless and dateless.
They all stay enough of the same to look alike
with the light coming first from one
direction then another, day after day.