A Tale of the Floods
by Michael Doyle

A backstory in humanity's pages
Tells of an advanced people of mythic ages
We study these times with optimism
Believing that humanity survived a great cataclysm

The time considered the dawn of history
Is imprecise and filled with mysteries
Human pre-history arose from the mud
In a time and place before and after the great flood

The Ice Age found a civilization that didn't last
But left its footprints in mankind's past
There's a jigsaw puzzle of half-strewn evidence
But everywhere we look, we see signs having relevance

Gunung Padang emerges from time's ancient mist
Hinting at an ancient civilization archeologists missed
There atop a mountain that was renown for its light
Arose man's enlightenment from the dark of humanity's night

Here it seems a spectacle has been found
There are stone slabs strewn across the ground
Columnar joints left basaltic terraces that suggest
Human hands at work in ways that history forgets

Layers of human traces separated by thousands of years
Bring questions to be answered and perhaps a bit of fear
True mysteries need to one day be fully explained
Not summarily dismissed by experts who have reigned

Re-envisioned as a terrace pyramid inside a jungle
This could be nature or an ancient sort of bungle
It greatly alters what we thought of the capability
Of these builders of ancient times and fantastic ability

To tell the very ancient and human story
Ground penetrating radar and other methods revealed the glory
Three chambers suggest a need for excavation
There is a mystery crying out for further investigation

Testing proved Gunung Padang was built over 20,000 years ago
Suggesting a big thing has been missed for us yet to know
Perhaps during the last ice age, Sundaland existed
And the legacy of this continent has persisted

Hunter gatherers coexisted with this megalithic society
Nan Medol on Pompei compares in it similar complexity
An Ice Age shifted guess as temperatures plunged low
And a rising sea level took it's concealing toll

The Java Sea conceals vast stretches that conceal
That one day underwater archeologists may reveal
That earth has grown dirty needed to be clean
Clods of earth saved mankind as the story means

New evidence deserves to be weighed and we may find
That hard proof and conjecture require and open mind
No final answer is more final than what we analyze
Arguing as we do from what we see with our own eyes

Truths that haunt us through our myths that prevail
Perhaps as pieces of puzzle to unravel and reveal
That legends, rumors, and stones hint of their story
Hidden in the past are tiny parts of mankind's glory

(c) November 9, 2024   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved