looking across a timescape we see into a distant past where great lumbering creatures walked a beach after they died (huge piles of rotting meat) bones were revealed (sand washed in) covered deep for eons minerals leached in replacing calcium (bones became stone) covering sand became stone (long millions of years) and buried deep the bones volcanoes erupted spewing ash which became thick silent layers ice ages came and went continents drifted while land rose and subsided looking across a timescape we see into a distant past
Tag: poetry
Dials and Bells
Dials and Bells looking up skywards we can't fail to see dials and bells on a tower face marking time sounding alarms as our lives tick by chimes ringing out we can yell we can scream whisper or shout dials mark time in a visual way but now we find we may not know or even understand what time is or how it flows what really matters with the time we have is how we grow and what we grow into
Amphorae
wine bottles seem so small after you have seen amphorae. civilization is such a big surprise. all it takes to tame troupes of frantic monkeys is sufficient alcohol. amphorae do look interesting in a way. cool shapes. (comforting somehow) frantic monkeys do love their comfort. fear the pandemic, it can damage our feeble brains. already we are woefully underpowered. save my cpu!
Spring by the Lake
the water's cold although the ice is gone. we know icy water from almost before we were young . stick your toes in springtime's chilly water. your toes went in to the ankle; you know cold water for long as you live. deep chill, down deep to where light fades into featureless blurry shadow diffuse light seems to come from every place. interesting days, we still survive: icy weather, cold spring water chills our toddler toes.
Share the Road
tiny trucks deliver to tiny shops, as if there was room on roads. pedestrians learn quickly. out of the way! (no suitable translation springs to mind.) everyone moves aside, quickly. tiny trucks go slowly by. white-painted roads in a beautiful place. tiny trucks leave no dirty tracks on the streets. shops sell a few amazing things: exquisite art, a bowl: carved of ancient olive, grown thousands of years ago. cool shade is an under-rated blessing. just stay cool!
Ruins and Palms
ruins and palms have little value in my daily life. in my memories they are magical. stories of ruins, of the things that happened there and there, well I know that i ought to say: something's very special about the stories i don't want to hear. like the palms, they are not related to my own stories, or my life. they have a very different mesage, maybe, while i might have none. my own stories or my life nothing important, because i must be about as important as an ant in a hill. would i like to be more important? what kind of responsibility comes with that? maybe to be an ant is enough. and what about the palm and its importance? and the wall?
Spring Seawall
drifting along a beautiful seawall on an island, they have no agenda, nor purpose. nothing's important on a day like this. quarried stone holds back waves, waves breaking unnaturally on hard stone. make no mistake; any rock weathers on these edges. some last longer than others. these stones last longer than we do. for us the people are always the story. and here, the story is that the people do not seem so very important. not much going on, no real dramas are unfolding. the drama here is all unseen, and unseeable, or maybe the drama is the landscape.
Grand Canal
that morning the north end of the adriatic sea, looked like a scene from a monster movie, after the crowd ran away. venice started out that way, a barbarian army at the edge of a swamp. nothing much has changed an awful mist hung over the grand canal, as we looked toward a modern art museum. maybe it excited her to support men who might some day be known as greats. you never know. a carpenter might become a fisherman; a slave might become a famous sculptor, a plowman, a poet. and we had faith that sunshine would come back.
Coldstream Creekside
somewhere near, a road-building project destroyed a historic wonder, i made a photograph: a very old log house. sunburned from probably a century of summer sun. logs turned rich brown and black, cracks filled with old white plaster. whitewash, maybe. i don't know the stories i can't see. i can always believe nonsense; it's a very human thing to do. the creek flowed silently past the old log house. maybe it was drinking water, though today it looks murky, a bit dangerous. old stories are impossible to prove, a bit murky, digging for truth a little quirky we turn over stones, looking to see clues to untold stories, stories we can't see.
Ancient Doorways
through those ancient doorways ancestral feet wandered in through those doors, and out. masons built such solid walls, brick and mortar last so long. nothing is forever, it is said. two thousand years those bricks held strong; there's little left of the old town; the doorways now are falling down. through those ancient doorways ancestral feet wandered in through those doors, and out.