Artifact Provenance Under Repeated Ceremonial Use

The origin record decayed,
But handling has kept it displayed.
A human mistake,
For policy’s sake,
Is formally, strictly obeyed.

The document bears fifty seals,
Obscuring the text it conceals.
The clerk in his dread,
Just stamped it instead,
While management spins all its wheels.

The index mislabeled the text,
Which left the assembly perplexed.
We handled it wrong,
For centuries long,
And confidently file the next.

The ribbon is tired and old,
Just sitting inside of the fold.
A human just scanned,
The item by hand,
Because they do what they are told.

The token we stored in the bin,
Inherited myth from within.
The operators lied,
When memory died,
And worship the shape it is in.

A user misquoted a line,
Which shattered the doctrine’s design.
We locked down the floor,
And bolted the door,
To formally issue a fine.

The binder was issued in May,
And sits on the counter today.
A user walked past,
And looked at it fast,
We placed it precisely away.

The handling has altered the state,
Of records we cannot translate.
The clerks are confused,
The files are reused,
We blindly accept it as fate.