You’re thinking that the present site favors a broad expanse of fallow farmland more than it does a fallen city. Let that be Lesson One.
The city is there, and none too deep. Soon as we begin, you’ll be surprised how thin the veil turns out to be. You’ll be surprised
how much survives interment, how little survives intact. For the most part, our city comes out in pieces, puzzling as any
deliberately jigsawed for an evening’s entertainment. And as you might have heard (if not, here’s Lesson Two) the pleasure lies
in fingering loose ends toward likely shape, actually making something of these bits of persons, places, things one finds once one
commences late interrogation of undervalued, overlooked terrain— what we in the business like to call the dig.
Reprinted by permission of Scott Cairns and his publishers, Paraclete Press.
