These are the things that make us human
Clothes covered in scratch marks and dog hair
Ancient stories, first told in languages lost to time
Statues of gods once feared and no longer worshiped
These are the things that make us immortal
Handprints, painted onto cave walls as the campfire blazed
Solemn faces, captured in black and white photographs
Initials, carved with love into tree bark
What could I leave behind? I ask myself
Will archaeologists dig up my bones in a thousand years?
Or will my name be lost to time and progress
on the day that I die?
I can feel mortality’s cold fingers around my throat
And so I write as much as I can
I keep old pictures on my phone
and let my feet sink into the ground beneath them
But that’s not unique to me
On some level, everyone hopes to be remembered
So we leave writing on walls that reads, I was here. I was human.
Don’t forget about me.
Wow Adrian, this is beautiful!
A thousand thousand years from now
A child
A pretty rock
A gathering.
A parent
Clearing away the detritus of
The day –
A pretty rock.
Suspicion, analyses, confirmation.
A shale sandwich the filling
A thin band of metal,
A thin band of carbon,
A thin band of metal.
A human was here,
No longer forgotten.