Prelude. The End

WHAT, IN THE end? 

What will be left but dust, you say. The ashes of an empire will cover those who built it, long resting in the earth. Or perhaps, it will fall to them in their lifetimes, as their children crumble and their grandchildren turn to rage. Temples that outlast the ages wait only for the age to come. Monuments, whether founded on sands or carved into the rock, patiently endure their sedimentation.

 Well, what if it were not an end that awaits but an ever-ending way? 

I say we are, each to themselves, a monument, one standing for the briefest of ages. We are one great plaque, in memory of things to come. An ode, a measure, a quiet hop in someone else’s step. The fruit fly is a monument, and the ballerina’s dance, and the wave that overlaps its predecessor. Heed the warning. Leaves rustling in the wind, or falling snows that cover sleepy towns, these are monuments too. Answer the plea. The book, the poem, the photograph. Carry them in the pockets of your racing mind. Their weight might slow you, but it will be worth it, in the end. 

The freshness of the air, the salt of the sea, the great consuming alone.

They are, as the temple is, as are you and I, bound by time and space, calling into the void of the forgotten to those that will worship and remember them.