Could anyone be bothered pressing these

in clay? Or scratching them in polished stone?

Words once were more than writing, were their own

accomplishment – you didn't read at ease,

you read at work, you dragged them from a field.

Then words were stooked, hand-tied, and lined in rows.

You harvested whatever you could carry.

But now, each day's another dictionary,

a library of untranslated prose.

We weigh the chaff and think we're talking yield.
I don't believe there's anything to say

that someone reading this in 3010

might think was truly worth the waste of clay

except,  “I was alive like you. Back then.”