What a Fool Believes

Posted by williamakin on October 19, 2010 · 3 Comments 

We are born accepting the density of our bodies, certain that we are of the earth. Our skin and hair and sinew and bones are conspirators in convincing us of the fact. We feel firm and solid, as unmoving as mountains and as unforgiving as stone, never minding the quakes and erosion. We are sculpted and polished, chipped, broken, and sometimes shattered but in the end returning to dust and ash. We are form, tangible and present.

Surely we are of fire as well. It warms our breath and boils our blood, burns in our passions and sears in our anger. It is as equally evident in the touch of a lover as it is in the pain of an enemy’s wound. We are wild and destructive, tamable and useful, illuminating and frightening. We create either beacons or hells depending upon our whims and become pilot lights or dying embers depending upon our fuel.

The wind is in our lungs and thoughts, unseen and untouchable but in constant motion. We breathe and think without the need to think about doing either, but can control our thoughts and breathing at will. We are brisk and chill, warm, ill, and nostalgic. There are banshees and windmills and jousters among us and the jet-streams we have polluted with our own dark brooding. We blow hard and resuscitate then sigh and count to ten.

Above all, we are water, mostly. It’s a common fact, more than half. We are drops from silver clouds far, far above, clouds themselves that seem to have coalesced from nothingness. Bit by bit, day by day, through gutters and pipes and downspouts, we are collected in rain barrels to become rippled, stagnant, still, and unpotable. When the vessel ages and decays and its days are gone we will seep forth and seek again the lowest ground, the natural path of our inherent humility. With time, tenacity, and numbers, we will carve canyons and shape worlds through our casual passing. We will flow on, down and down, until the final drops of our egos join the vast and gleaming ocean, leaving us unmourned and unsung. At last.

Filed under daily life, nonfiction, Uncategorized · Tagged with earth, ego, elements, fire, humility, water, wind