Class of 1958

Dennis Puleston Memorial

(Former high school classmate

who became an Archaeologist;

struck by lightning and killed

on a pyramid in Mexico, 1978.)

.

High in the Mayan mists

the summons came for you.

Not even time for surprise

on that light, intelligent

All-American face, when

the molten voltage arced,

short-circuiting your career.

Among these dim artifacts

and carefully catalogued

ruins, one random, erratic

bolt sent you time-spanning

into the world of the relics

you collected… a search

for the past suddenly became

a fatal find of the present…

at the peak of your calling

antiquity became reality.

Here in the jungle steam

we look up to the pyramids

of your accomplishment

and ponder this ancient

sense of loss… contemplate

why we do not weep

over such tragedy…

dig as we must

there is only one answer

we can expose. We sift

through the loam of reason

dust off shards of sense

and cautiously chip away

at hard facts assembled.

A final restoration points

to a life that was somehow

above this world…

so far advanced

we do not comprehend it

from this antique earth.

.

Richard G. Beyer

.