Carbon Dating

No jade court, this dark house,
Some winter shelter, fragmented
But nothing more, no home
For children to feel safe.

Maybe a refugee would smile
At finding this flak-holed vessel
In the mountains as they cross
From one war to another.

Something to stop snow,
To shade the matches,
In the heights of something
Broken in the way of things.

And now the summer lightens
All this bone-grey timber,
Counting silently its age
with vapourising isotopes.

A half-life here is gone,
A billion years to iron
Beats the odds of reaching
New calendars.