Spring Eternal

Essay by Timothy Taubes

Miraculously it escaped discovery for two and a half millennia; went unnoticed by each successive wave of conqueror, undetected by prying archeologists, and somehow missed by cunning poachers and thieves. Here perched on its altar, what charmed place is this! Could it be Parnassus; or perhaps the lofty heights of Mt. Olympus itself?

The figure: a child of Praxiteles? It has stood vigil at its post suffering the indignities inflicted by sun, rain, wind, and time; the elegance of its repose worn but un-obscured; reduced to an androgenic human element.

Sprawling in the distance is the majesty of creation; another reminder of the endless cycle of life, and the inexorable march of time…Life, Death, and Rebirth.

Alas — a pair of doves alight upon the fragment, as generations have done. Are they messengers from higher on? Was the ideal worthy of our attainment? And why am I here? At this time, at this place, as I pound the sacred earth with my fist. “Damn you to hell…you blew it all up!”