Future Archeology - Jan 25 2023

 

Future Archeology

Jan 25 2023

In an age of obsolescence

remains are everywhere.

There is no digging down

to find the bypassed bridges

streaked with rust,

defunct malls

where birds nest

and glass litters the floor.

The gutted factories,

where all that's left

are crumbling remnants of structural steel.

What once were bustling hives of industry

now silent and still,

looming over the landscape

like the hulking remains

of extinct giants.

An abandoned village

where animals roam

and nature encroaches;

trees, pushing through concrete,

greenery running riot.

No tedious sifting of layers,

no precious artifacts

unearthed intact.

Just abandoned buildings

and ransacked relics

standing in plain sight.

So where are the people

who lived and built and planned?

Are they huddled underground?

Have they fled,

seeking refuge

in the few grim cities

where life subsists?

Or are they dead,

consumed

by their own hubris and greed?

And what will future archeologists think?

War, pandemic, civil unrest?

Too much, too soon, too fast?

The Roman Coliseum

has lasted thousands of years,

while our works

are already turning to dust.

Nothing left

but a vague remembrance,

handed down

through story and legend.

Nothing left

but these magnificent ruins

they will struggle to understand;

monuments

that have long outlasted 

their deeply flawed creators.

I've just written this, and am sitting saying “wow” to myself. What a dystopic turn! It certainly didn't start out with this in mind. Interesting how I wrote it almost like taking dictation: stream of consciousness; straight through, almost word for word as it is now. So, is this me, a notorious pessimist and misanthrope? Or is it the zeitgeist of the times, and I simply swim in it?

It was actually this photo essay that triggered me. I suspect it was the awful beauty and pathos of abandonment I was hoping to capture. Not a metaphor for hubris and greed!

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/photos-of-abandoned-russia/566984/

I think the article I recently read was also in the back of my mind. The Romans, who so confidently bestrode the ancient world, and built for permanence, not obsolescence.

https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106