Price Less

I have been asked to assign a number
to a field that will not hold still.
Each time I return, the acreage has changed.
Not the boundaries -
the weight.

The Greeks called certain ground hieros -
sacred, set apart, belonging to [Redacted].
You could not price hieros.
To attempt it invited ruin.

I attempted it anyway,
though my own blood remembers
being on the other side of the ledger.

The number I wrote
rewrote itself
in a hand older than mine.

Three foundations lie beneath this foundation.
The deeds disagree -
who took what,
when,
and whether took is the right verb.
Perhaps the right verb is owed.

I was asked to calculate value.
But value requires stability.
And the land here
has been stolen so many times
that theft has become
the only constant -
the one thing
that can be reliably measured.

I filed my report.
The number I filed
was not the number I wrote.
The number that filed itself
was the number
the land
has always known
it was worth:

everything.
everyone.
again.