Stairway to heaven
May. 3rd, 2022 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sea_sprayI thought someone might like to read this poetic take on where we stand at the turning point of our civilisation.
We stand at the turning point of an age. The peak of a mountain never before scaled by humanity. There have been other’s before and there will be other’s after but, I think, this one will never be scaled again. Taste the air and savour it. Drink in the view, for the world has never been seen like this before. And then turn away and prepare to climb down.
We climbed a staircase crafted of ancient sunlight. The power of which has carried some of us beyond the air itself on pillars of fire. We now depend on this ancient power, drawn from the blood of the earth, for our very subsistence. At this height we could scarcely breathe without it’s power. But like all power it came at a cost, and with the responsibility to use it wisely. The cost is great in lives, lost and cut short. Or twisted beyond bearing.
Some would that we hadn’t scaled this peak at all, so great is the cost already, and oh how much is still to come. All will be paid in the fullness of time, by us or our descendant’s. Many deny that cost, even as their lives add to it. Franticly searching for way’s to climb still higher so that we can pretend a little longer that we need not return to the ground, for the journey down will be harsher than the way up.
Many see those stairs for what they are. Not glittering from within but glistening stickily. Crafted from the putrefied blood of the living earth, corrupting those who walk upon them. Many argue that it’s merely miss-use that’s corrupting this stairway to heaven. Maybe once that was true, but now the rot is deep.
Those who can start to turn away from the false glitter will have it a little easier. It’s time to look for the way down. The further down the mountain we can get before the core of the stairway finishes rotting out the less we’ll have to fall on our own. I will not live to see the valley floor below, I hope. For it’s a long way down, and I have no parachute. If we fall too fast, some would survive, but only those who’re cushioned on the bodies of their friends.
The more steady the decent the less will be lost along the way. But we’ll need to give up much of the treasure we’ve found to have a hope of getting to the bottom with some of it intact. We will have no choice but to watch as much of it evaporates in the morning sun, or is smashed against the rocks and broken beyond all recognition. Lost to the sands of time, when we thought it would stand for eternity.
So celebrate the mountain we’ve climbed, like the life of an old friend now coming to it’s close. Mourn for the wonder’s that will cease to be as we descend. Mourn and fair-well the friend who’s taken care of you since you were born. As you hear the breath of this civilisation rattle and cough. As the smoke of a lifetime clogs their lungs and the dreams of millions cloud their eyes. A world where anyone could live in comfort that would be the envy of ancient kings, fly across the world like a god and see it laid before them from a bright warm home.
What can you carry, on this journey ahead. What can you do to help keep us from plummeting into the caves below the valley floor. So deep that those who fall into them may be lucky to emerge again.
But it’s not all dark ahead. The climb has been hard on many of us and the descent offers a chance to regain much that has been lost. Joy’s that have been forgotten and pleasures now thought worthless. Much was lost on the way up which would be worth regaining, while we remember where it was left.
We have travelled far from our roots and if we return to them with clear eye’s and firm steps they will welcome us again. We will need to take up burden’s that we offloaded by burning a million year’s of sunlight, and will now need to bear in full once more. But there will be times for joy and song. Time’s for love and tenderness.
For this trip up and over this mountain is not a march but a dance. A dance so much greater than ourselves that it might as well go on forever in time and space. And while we may not be part of it for long that dance will go on, longer and further than we ever could.
So let us dance, sideways and backward and every direction except further up this putrid and rotting stairway of babble. Instead let’s go find what we’ve forgotten and bring what we’ve learned.
We stand at the turning point of an age. The peak of a mountain never before scaled by humanity. There have been other’s before and there will be other’s after but, I think, this one will never be scaled again. Taste the air and savour it. Drink in the view, for the world has never been seen like this before. And then turn away and prepare to climb down.
We climbed a staircase crafted of ancient sunlight. The power of which has carried some of us beyond the air itself on pillars of fire. We now depend on this ancient power, drawn from the blood of the earth, for our very subsistence. At this height we could scarcely breathe without it’s power. But like all power it came at a cost, and with the responsibility to use it wisely. The cost is great in lives, lost and cut short. Or twisted beyond bearing.
Some would that we hadn’t scaled this peak at all, so great is the cost already, and oh how much is still to come. All will be paid in the fullness of time, by us or our descendant’s. Many deny that cost, even as their lives add to it. Franticly searching for way’s to climb still higher so that we can pretend a little longer that we need not return to the ground, for the journey down will be harsher than the way up.
Many see those stairs for what they are. Not glittering from within but glistening stickily. Crafted from the putrefied blood of the living earth, corrupting those who walk upon them. Many argue that it’s merely miss-use that’s corrupting this stairway to heaven. Maybe once that was true, but now the rot is deep.
Those who can start to turn away from the false glitter will have it a little easier. It’s time to look for the way down. The further down the mountain we can get before the core of the stairway finishes rotting out the less we’ll have to fall on our own. I will not live to see the valley floor below, I hope. For it’s a long way down, and I have no parachute. If we fall too fast, some would survive, but only those who’re cushioned on the bodies of their friends.
The more steady the decent the less will be lost along the way. But we’ll need to give up much of the treasure we’ve found to have a hope of getting to the bottom with some of it intact. We will have no choice but to watch as much of it evaporates in the morning sun, or is smashed against the rocks and broken beyond all recognition. Lost to the sands of time, when we thought it would stand for eternity.
So celebrate the mountain we’ve climbed, like the life of an old friend now coming to it’s close. Mourn for the wonder’s that will cease to be as we descend. Mourn and fair-well the friend who’s taken care of you since you were born. As you hear the breath of this civilisation rattle and cough. As the smoke of a lifetime clogs their lungs and the dreams of millions cloud their eyes. A world where anyone could live in comfort that would be the envy of ancient kings, fly across the world like a god and see it laid before them from a bright warm home.
What can you carry, on this journey ahead. What can you do to help keep us from plummeting into the caves below the valley floor. So deep that those who fall into them may be lucky to emerge again.
But it’s not all dark ahead. The climb has been hard on many of us and the descent offers a chance to regain much that has been lost. Joy’s that have been forgotten and pleasures now thought worthless. Much was lost on the way up which would be worth regaining, while we remember where it was left.
We have travelled far from our roots and if we return to them with clear eye’s and firm steps they will welcome us again. We will need to take up burden’s that we offloaded by burning a million year’s of sunlight, and will now need to bear in full once more. But there will be times for joy and song. Time’s for love and tenderness.
For this trip up and over this mountain is not a march but a dance. A dance so much greater than ourselves that it might as well go on forever in time and space. And while we may not be part of it for long that dance will go on, longer and further than we ever could.
So let us dance, sideways and backward and every direction except further up this putrid and rotting stairway of babble. Instead let’s go find what we’ve forgotten and bring what we’ve learned.
