I. National Museum of Natural History

The earliest direct evidence of life,
concentric layers in rock, rust-brown,
is behind Plexiglas near a mural
and a cheaply-animated educational film
where the molecules and DNA chains
become little colorful dancers
and do a conga line through the
primordial soup.

Those basic ingredients for the recipe
of chemical evolution: the carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen (affectionately known
as chon) all rattled about this young planet
and eventually formed the rest
of the museum's collection:
the seed,
the amniotic egg,

the starter packs of life that led to
the dinosaur bones,
that naked skeleton grin your mind
fills out with muscle, flesh and
skin, the whip of the tail as it
walks, the turn of the head, the
puffs of breath from cavernous nostrils;
and farther along in the exhibits,
the mammoth, the elephant, the horse,
the man.

From there, everything spread
in a true instant: all the sights
in the other museums, the layered
space suits, printing presses,
music, technology, war,
all were encased here at the first,
in the archives of stone rings,
behind the Plexiglas
that gets a few seconds of attention
before lunch.

II. Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The rain has progressed
from a medium drizzle to a steady fall.

Steps are cautious over slick footing,
voices lowered,
sound dampened.
Wreaths in the country's colors keep vigil,
red satin ribbons dewed with rain,
the dove-gray sky flat overhead.
Names are half-washed from the ebony wet,
rivulets obscuring letters,
and the wall reflects a slow parade of umbrellas,
flowers wrapped in plastic,
laminated flags,
a scrap of a rubbing:"Michael"
ghostly in graphite.

My eyes select names at
random; I don't know any of them but
every one had a family, friends, a life
they were plucked out of to be set down in that land,
amidst downpours and torrents,
chaos and floods.

The rain falls gently on them now.

The bronze soldiers stand with their gaze
to the wall, water dripping lifelike
from their fingertips, coursing
down their cheeks, softening
their eyes. Their guns are still,
their stance eternal.
Someone has laid red carnations by their boots,
and pools have formed
in the hollows of the statue's base.
Each raindrop radiates rings,
slowly spreading out and on,
motion among the motionless.
These three keep their attention
forever on the chiseled stone,

the prayer that is written
in a language of names.

III. Lincoln Memorial

My husband pulls out a penny -- look!
Here we are!
And here he is, braced in stone, his
arms resting on slabs of it, looking as if he can
never change -- and yet he does,
or his expression does,
if one is to walk from the left to the right.
Standing here,
he is commanding, powerful,
stern but not cruel. He would give you
firm justice. But if you walk
to the other side,
he welcomes you with a quirk of a smile
at the corner of his marble mouth.

Perhaps it is because today,
for all his attempts at a steadfast stare,
a white dove sits perched on
Lincoln's left sleeve. It has come to rest
from the rain perhaps, like us,
and as more people arrive, it takes flight,
each wingflap echoing in the stone expanse as it
soars between the pillars
and is lost on the mall.