In Siberia there are miners,
buried men
who smoke to breathe
drink to soften

Who wrestle the riverbanks 
with hoses and pumps 
scour the melting ground
	      for a gleam of ivory 
	      for a vein of bone

Relic of the great dead
	      the mammoth
a thing that cannot be imagined
but can be found

Pulled from the earth
	      the hiding-place of time
and sold
for cigarettes, vodka, women, and dogs

All the good things of the earth
This earth, now