Impermanence

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Impermanence

“Nothing exists longer than an instant except the thing

we hold in memory.”--Sam Savage.

When we behold Art

in any of its many forms,

we question our roots.

Antiquity is rife with grandiose

               statuary & architecture,

               mysterious paintings,

               oriental rugs,

               medieval tapestries,

               Native American dolls & dream catchers,

               hand-painted vases & urns & pottery,

               tattered scrolls & parchments,

And scraps of paper containing poetic lines left unsigned--

          all fabulous to behold, to discover & share.

          all anonymous, carefully, maddeningly cloaking 

          their creators,                  as well their motivations,

                                 muses & back stories.

                                 For me, historical relics,

                                 knick-knacks, furniture & art

are just a magnificent particle     of a much larger mosaic,

                                  a cosmic mandala.

Recently, my brother & I stood on a high ridge in the jagged foothills

below Mt. Adams, taking photos of the mountain, & as we zoomed

tighter for close-up shots we both were delighted to find three faces

formed on the edge of a melting glacier--where the exposed boulders

had formed a perfect rendering of a trio of distinct physiognomy.

I remember thinking about all the other faces

        and animals I have seen in the vermilion cliffs of

                 Utah & Nevada, or powerfully poking up out of dense

                          forests everywhere for some of us to marvel at, or

                  marching out to sea, broken off of continents, worn into

        wondrous shapes by wrathful waves--some into graceful arches,

others to stand alone or in groups, but who/what is the

                  magnanimous Muse that enjoys the creation of

                  these artistic & poetic anomalies, these elephants,

                                                                                  ships,

                                                                                  covered wagons,

                                                                                  turtles,

                                                                                  alligators,

                                                                                  camels,

                                                                                  bulls, horses,

pyramids, geometric shapes & human faces? Because some men

are so fascinated by Nature’s handiwork,

that in South Dakota, they have

transformed mountains into Art,

imprinting their visions into sheer cliff sides.

You know, whether we believe in Genesis or Evolution,

                                                     Scripture or Anthropology,

                  there was a time that we worshipped Nature,

                  & accepted it as divine--but today we have

        allowed our technological hubris,

        greed, pride, & ignorance

to plunge our entire planet into peril.

I think that somewhere

out in the vastness of void,

midst the star-choked swarm

of a billion-billion solar systems,

there are eyes watching our fatal folly,

merely observing, unwilling to intervene,

perhaps even making wagers on the

eventual timeline for our

destruction & extinction. 

If we co-created

this planet, let’s revisit our

own motivation.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub Poetics