FREE VERSE Poem: Idol., by Charlotte Husnjak

I am no traveller from an antique land.
I am land itself
I am the Earth
The thing that grows and crumbles to
dust
Ashes painted over cave walls by firelight
Mixed with water, daubed on faces and canvases and buildings.
I am the sand that your footprints press upon
And the wave that washes them away.

I am the last thing Ozymandius saw back when he was
Just Ramesses
I was the stone his body became
– Atherosclerosis ; Renal Calculus –
More than mere Nephrolith

I made him monolith
Hardened him from Earth and
Gave him centuries
Turned to steel then
Took him away
Chiselled him down to rubble
Nose down to a stub
Turning
Feet to sand
He crumbled from the bottom up
To be found and then spoken of
Later
By one teller to another.
Crushing
myself to black
Spreading
Thin over mesh into paper

Together
We gave him more life still.

I am all of this and so much more.
I am History.
With hands and tools
I am the ropes that bind and pull him
up,
And then reverse myself
To bring them tumbling back down towards me.

Colston; Columbus, Kings of all Kinds.
Despite them,
So alive am I
Beyond story and memories and Earth.
I am What shall remain,
Even when the truth cannot.