Weapons are forged in the fiercest and hottest of flames.The alloy is subjected to the kin of unimaginable and searing embers to be fortified and refined to a classic masterpiece.
Yet, for all its brilliance and glory, the fire carries a great danger. The same flames can build into a crescendo and birth a fire-breathing dragon, all-consuming. The fire that once tempered and built can lay waste to said masterpiece. Left in the blaze for too long, it loses form and remains void leaving behind molten ruins, bewildering smoke and engulfing ash.
The sun, whilst benevolent and radiant, holds the same fire that scorched Icarus—who flew too close to his peril. Ironically still, the very fire that obliterates all leaving behind dust is from whence the Phoenix arises.
The porcelain cup mirrors the innocence of childhood – precious, complete and whole. However, still so delicate and thus can only withstand so much. Sooner or later, be it by design or complete happenstance it falls. This is tragic but an inevitable fate bound to happen in time. It is not a question of if but when.
The intensity of the fall ultimately determines the extent of the breakage – cracking and shattering. Regardless out of the outcome, the process remains irreversible. Eternally losing its original design and now having been altered, it takes on a completely new form. The cracks can be sealed, the broken pieces can be reassembled, the shape restored but the fracture remains in and out of time. And with that, the domino effect ripples outwards.
Perhaps the porcelain cup can’t hold water for as long as it originally did. Perhaps the fragments now become sharp projectiles capable of cutting and searing any hands that dare to hold it. The cup could now leak in ways it didn’t before. The magnificence of the cup could be lost – the allure of what was now ceases to exist. In this fragile state, the pieces may give way again over time, the cracks getting bigger over time, demanding reassembly once more.
The question to ponder though is – what next?
Do we obsess over what was or contend with what is?
Do we toss out the old and broken for the new and shining?
Do we learn to live with the broken pieces – faults and all?
I wonder…
Occasionally, I find myself circling back to that pedestal that once stood tall, encased, enshrined like a monument reminiscent of somebody that I used to know
As the seasons pass, I wilt and shrivel, while their flowers bloom all season long. They radiate in their youth and tread a path I once authored and chattered. My tracks remain etched in the sand but I lost track of the way. A decade apart they have revitalized the path once laid bare.
The pedestal shattered. Once a shooting star that flew high in the sky – now fallen to the earth, devoid of its former radiance, stripped of its magnificent glowing essence.
Now just a shell of the glory lost; ripped and torn apart by the jagged porcelain edges. They, however, stand the test of time despite cracks in the crevices, in spite of being thrown into unforgiving embers.
Once a beacon of hope; voice of reason; one to model and take after – now conspicuously missing in action, completely submerged in the great blue. With sifting tides and phasing moons, I seem to be etching further from the ledge edging closer to the mouth of the abyss.
How can this be?
I once took the road less travelled – now lost in the deep yellow. All around me are echoes of great musings, far and distant in the ether. In the looking glass, a stranger stares back: a
face I recognize yet cannot make out its features. The striking difference is blurred by life’s weight and pain. A fallen warrior- forged in the hottest flames – now a flaming hot mess reduced to molten lead.
There is no hero to swoop in and save the day. Superman has hung out his coat. The wands to restore the magic or even to glamour the beautiful have all been tossed upon the stake.
Fire and brimstone are coming crashing and falling down…
How can this be?
