In life, you are a dormant volcano, existing in your basic state. A simmering, melting pot of experience, ebbing and flowing under the surface, heating and cooling; changing form. All of the wonderous possibility of creation and destruction, circulating since the dawn of time, heaving under your thick igneous skin.
Breath out, breathe in.
Cycles end, cycles begin.
This power lies in all of us. We all form from the magical elements of the earth and one day we will all melt back in. Energy is never destroyed; it only changes form. Everything is temporary and these fleeting moments of existence are made all the more glorious for their precious briefness. Everything that exists will eventually return to nothing but fuel for the next rising. You and I are humble to this. Such power as yours must vent. Steam pours from rupturing cracks. I am sorry for all the times that I have made you angry. I am sorry for all the times that I have pushed you to the point of shameful bursts of irritation. Your response is simple, “I love you nonetheless”.
And you must know how much I love you, in your glorious capacity to captivate me, to cultivate the good in all of us. Your wondrous encyclopaedic knowledge of all humanity, of all history, of all time. Your love is felt in the heady waves of heat emanating from your mantle core. I look up to you in all weathers. I look up to the impressive scene of your gargantuan snow topped ridges, orange with the glow of a strong heart. One day I hope to be as impressive as you.
I owe my life to you. Our whole family do. We are yours.
You are sick. Despite our patient and dedicated tending, the tiny tremors that began a year ago grow more forceful. The intermittent rumblings shudder with uncertainty. The breeze picks up, trees lean, hanging in whipping wind, dancing in the face of threat. We dance also, we are hoping for a miracle. You are unsettled, let me help you. You have done so much for us. Your response is quiet “Don’t worry about me, just look after your Mother”.
The ground shakes.
Our home groans.
Pictures from long ago fall from the walls, our happy times haphazard in shattered glass and broken frames. Faces appear distorted, smiles twisting. We were so happy when you were well. We would sacrifice anything to make you well again.
The tremors grow larger every day. I see the fear in my family’s eyes. We’ve grown through you. We rely on you.
The sickly smell of sulphur permeates the pores of people surrounding your base. We do not turn away. You are in decline and we will not leave your side despite dangerous contractions, muscle spasms. And then the contradictions come, you were once so strong. You were formidable, a sublime power of the extraordinary nature of love.
And then, the eruption comes.
Your soul rushes through your mouth with overwhelming force. You are ignited in a pyre of burning base elements, liquefied into a deadly matter that that will inevitably destroy you. Matter, which building into dark hostile clouds, sparking with the blinding cracks of lightening which once animated your physical body, steals your energy back into the earth to sustain new life. Like everything that awes us, we are powerless.
Nothing lasts forever. It is just your time.
The sound, scarring my ears, an atomic boom, races across the land. It tears down trees and buildings, quashing all habitation, undoing all the fields we planted, all the ideas once meant to bloom. I take the time to salvage my favourite seeds. I wish others would think to do the same. I want to run from you. I want to save myself from the sight, I want to save my family, I want to save you, but it is out of my hands. We are feeble creatures overshadowed by the colossal, looming nature of all things.
All I can do is stare at you. Wide eyed, I gorge all my senses on the physical remnants, the sagging, crumbling rock, the glugging hot red heat of pain, the sound of the final murmurs dying away, the feeling of the final twitches. I already know that what remains is no longer you. These remnants are merely tributes to what once was.
Creation is destruction.
Life is death.
We stand together, helpless. We stand and watch you burn. You burn and turn into ash, thick dark ash that falls from the sky, coating our hair, our hands, settling in our eyes and the folds of our skin. The thick dark ash that was once you in all of your glory, now reduced to nothing but flakes of empty, rocky grains that silently coat us in what remains of your physicality.
Your legacy will live on through us. Through the stories we tell others of the joys and hardships that we had, basking in the protection of one of nature’s greatest wonders.
Our family begin to scoop the ash up and fill a brown paper bag.
2023
Bernadette Pamplin Art & Poetry 