Ammonite

[Hawkman]

In secret I have seen the death of worlds,
The falling ashes of a vanished sun, carpet me,
Like the dust of ages settling in my mind.
And there, fossil ammonites of thought
Are stratified within its layers, petrified,
Preserved, encased in stone, but dead.

They are but echoes of the life that spawned them,
Relics of a vanished age, long past,
When almost anything seemed possible.
Now dig one out and polish it,
See how its facets catch the light,
The colour it still holds;
How beautiful it was in life,
How intricate its structure;
But it evolved for a different time -
Now it’s just an ornamental paperweight
Holding down a pile of unpaid bills.

[PrinceMyshkin]

How bruising it feels when this eulogy, so elegaiac to begin with, ends with these memento mori:



How beautiful it was in life,
How intricate its structure;
But it evolved for a different time -
Now it’s just an ornamental paperweight
Holding down a pile of unpaid bills.

Sometimes, as here, one can almost feel the weight of the poet's pen on the paper or his fingertips on the keyboard. "But it evolved for a different time" is so quietly, temperately heart-breaking. Always, we hope for some more uplifting epitaph but then there is nothing more than what you have said: "But it evolved for a different time..."

[thecatwithfish]

This is a hauntingly sentimental piece, I love the exploration of the transience of life being coupled with the in-transience of beauty.

[AuntShecky]

I read the whole poem as a metaphor in that instead of keeping one's beliefs etched in stone or fossilized , the mind should keep evolving.

Well done.

[Hawkman]

Hi Prince, & Thanks for your comments and for yours too, thecatwithfish. I'm happy to have provided something that you both could relate to, but I was slightly concerned that because your comments seem to be concentrating on the second stanza that I had failed to communicate my full intention.

But Auntie, you have picked up on the full metaphorical nature of the piece so perhaps I got it right. I was concerned that by splitting the first and second stanzas I had divorced the metaphore from the figurative description and made it too obscure.

if any of you have any thoughts on this feel free to post them. Thanks again.

H