There it was the first step of a start. A new moon on the rise or a warm sun after the cold of winter, there it was. The keep that was built to keep you out is now trembling in the aftershock of the war. There was battle being waged behind tapestries of fabrications. And there were campaigns being lost as we dug in and built our fortresses to stay an unseen enemy. And there were clashes being won by the stands of righteous indignations only seen through the marches of protest. Even then the bastions only quaked in place as the foundations were built to last the tests of time.

Here it is the next word in a chapter, and one would think I am placing bricks to bolster the walls. Yet the walls have taken their beatings and are now crumbling to the dust they will become. Wearily I am revisiting the moments as an aftermath. Memories of the past will fade as that dust settles into the comfort of another time, and here it is. The knowledge of what was will become as fiction to the remaining pieces of stone and the messages placed upon them. Only glimpses of the portrait will be seen and only pieces of ruin will stay behind.

There it be, off in the horizon, a flicker of recollection or a phantasm passing in the darkness. There it will be that you will find the shards that so sharply pierced your feet as you traversed the remains while you sifted through the rubble. Perhaps to find a history, maybe a story. Whether a treasure or a stone only you will have before you a fragment of the truth as all becomes distorted in time. When tearing down the walls and laying bare the vastness of existence we fail to remain safe from the scrutiny of the eyes searching only their meaning, feasting upon the vestiges of memory.

Exposed we would seek out the shelter of the stronghold that we destroyed. With nowhere to run and no place to hide we will simply have to lay upon our worth. There will you find solace in the memorial of the sojourn? Upon the grave of times past will there grow new fruit to sustain a future? I might gather the remains of rubble and set them one upon the other. I may even try to find the cornerstone of beginnings so that I might heed the warnings of endings before my new citadel of safety crumbles again. I might even dig deep the trenches of thought while you think I’m talking about a year.