© C.C. Brooks

ARCHAEOLOGY

Last Thanksgiving my daughter and I wandered

off into the forest.  We stumbled upon the ruins
of a homesteader’s cabin, which we excavated
with shovel and trowel.  My years of archaeological
study came down to a father and daughter
excavating broken bits of colored glass and rusty
tins from a ramshackle dwelling where, according
to a nearby headstone, Anna was born and died
on the same winter day in 1911. 

I’d like to think that even though I didn’t become

the scholar of my dreams, to spend one afternoon
with my daughter working on our own archaeology
project makes it all worthwhile.