Rosetta Stone

A block of broken basalt, food for sand,
a grave and silent priest who holds his tongue
and hides his triple tongues that praised the man,
King Ptolemy, whose benefices sung
in trio, quarried chorus etched in white
on black, that conquering Greece could ready read
what ebbing Egypt eked with chiseling bite
in sacred glyphs due honors to be said
in swift Demotic, deference and dread.
A stone, confetti for a king’s parade,
though pharaohs of the pyramids lay dead
whose mighty mysteries in silence fade.        
   Not sphinx nor obelisk in desert found        
   compare to this light stone left on the ground.

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