Old Babylonian culinary tablets
(ca. 1750 BC) at Yale

Cuneiform glisters like seed-grain in its cold
Connecticut cloister—the lawns and gardens
around draped in wedding fondant—amidst pots
and ewers and clay bullae dug from the dust
of ancient days. Scattered here from distant hearths
and kiln-baked, in each unleavened loaf there lives

and breathes afresh the body and blood of lives
once shared within adobe walls… By dawn’s cold
glow where they woke, broke bread, then rose from warm hearths
to tend to pastures green, orchards and gardens
grown up from the Mesopotamian dust,
Ea’s waters devised, brave aqueducts, pots

and ewers borne home again at dusk to pots
of copper and bronze—River of life! of lives
lived well, nourished by the harvest of this dust,
nursled and inured from the darkening cold,
ripe vegetables and fruits from the gardens,
fish, fowl, loaves fresh and warm from bakery hearths

nearby carted by goring oxen to hearths
afire; scents of allium arise from pots,
wash o’er city walls, through the palace gardens
of that bold exalted prince in whose code lives
a recipe for peace, for justice, hope—Cold
stone stele stands tall and risen from the dust,

measures retributions in kind, while spice-dust
and herbs infuse stews, staked over open hearths
gazelles roast golden, in marinades from cold-
rooms come squab, hares, kid, to braise in oilèd pots—
Such wonders unknown to any who now lives,
an earthly paradise hung with such gardens!…

Seek shelter here from these blanketed gardens
and ask, how can memories be raised from dust,
obscure Akkadian ciphers stand for lives
left to waste, forsaken, for untended hearths,
fields blighted, run to seed? Pale earthenware pots,
ewers, mute cylinder seals, frail plaques, and cold… 

Gone are the gardens now, the mud-bricks and hearths
turned to rubble, to dust—dull fragments, potsherds,
scattered lives cold and broken, broken and cold.

---

---