I have lost count of columns as I walk down streets that once walked emperors, kings, beggars, and thieves, but now few feet find their way along the broken cobblestones where only weeds grow and no seeds are sown. The caws of crows echo down empty corridors as I stand alone among the ruins of these once great cities in awe of man's defiance of time for thousands of years have past since these empires have fallen, these cities have crumbled and all that remains are ruins, all that is left are their names. All is impermanent. Even this.
Sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine what these places were like at the height of their glory, but most of the time I like to keep my eyes open and gaze out across a landscape that knows no time, for there lies the desert: land of fever, keeper of eternity, home of my heart.
Here there are no structures made by man, only mountains carved by the wind and if you stand in silence you can still feel the sea. Here lives a beauty so raw that it has created a raw vulnerability within me and although my days here are brief I have allowed myself to get lost in this land of endless eternities and in this getting lost I have found what I have been seeking: silence, stillness, peace.
The wind lifts, creating a small tornado that lasts no longer than a moment but still long enough to arouse me from my reverie and in this awakening I gather a handful of sand and allow it to slip through my fingers, watching each grain fall, like civilizations, back to the earth with the name Ozymandias upon my lips, remembering, always remembering, that my time will come to an end and to this sand I will return and I will be home.