Shards

 In the great heat
 of the end of July
 plants demand water
 with many leaved tongues
 and gratefully accept
 all offers.
 Idly scanning
 the dripping
 dug out earth
 beneath the stone fence
  my eye was snagged
  by the delicate outline
  of an earlike handle
  revealed in the soft lighting
  of the sunset.
  Carefully
  I extract
  a whole handle
  and several greying yellow
  small shards
  the remains of a water jug
  or perhaps
  a cooking pot,
  or a honey vase
  broken
  aeons ago
  and thrown with a careless hand
  into the bushes.
  A butter fingered housewife?
  a drunken reveler?
  a thirsty and hasty slave?
  An incidental
  marker down the centuries,
  "here  man  passed".