I read the logs of an expedition
Which said: Under the earth a web of stone
Spires stands. Nearby, the careful excavation
Revealed depictions of an animal unknown
That varied greatly in its muted hue,
Showing us these people valued beauty:
The grimaced face disdains the blue.
How quaint to hate a colour absolutely!
And on a metal plate these words appear:
'This place is not a place of honour, there
Are no great deeds commemorated here.'
The mining continued. Deep underground,
Through thick black concrete, we persevere.
And won't stop until an ancient secret's found.
Dogmantra OP wrote
(I mean it should stand on its own but I'm kind of obsessed with the parallels between the themes of shelley's ozymandias and the long term nuclear waste warnings and this is kind of a riff on those ideas. shelley's poem can be read as saying 'how foolish ozymandias was to declare himself the mightiest and to think he'd never be bettered' and I wanted to write something that was like 'how foolish of us to presume we can tell what people in the past were thinking')