nothing lasts (web weaving exercise)
nezahualcoyotl (nahuatl):
The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.
anonymous (anglo-saxon):
Who’s wise must fore-ken how ghostly it has been
when the world and its things stand wasted—
like you find, here and there, in this middle space now—
there walls totter, wailed around by winds,
gnashed by frost, the buildings snow-lapt.
The winehalls molder, their wielder lies
washed clean of joys, his peerage all perished,
proud by the wall. War ravaged a bunch
ferried along the forth-way, others a raptor ravished
over lofty seas, this one the hoary wolf
broke in its banes, the last a brother
graveled in the ground, tears as war-mask.
bashō (japanese):
Summer grasses—
all that remain of
a dream of warriors
a. e. housman (english):
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
bai juyi (chinese):
A flower is no flower
mist no mist
that which comes at midnight
leaves at dawn,
arrives like a spring dream—for a while
leaves like a morning cloud—nowhere to be found
anonymous (anglo-saxon):
These wall-stones are wondrous—
calamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants
corrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.
Ice at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared
the scarred storm-walls have disappeared—
the years have gnawed them from beneath. A grave-grip holds
the master-crafters, decrepit and departed, in the ground’s harsh
grasp, until one hundred generations of human-nations have
trod past. . . .
udānavarga 1:22 (sanskrit):
The end of all that has been hoarded up is to be spent; the end of what has been lifted up is to be cast down; the end of meeting is separation; the end of life is death.