A lifetime's food for thought is hived
in contemplating certain ruins.
Can it be that DNA of cultural memory restores
the missing architrave, the ornament,
the attributes of grace?
Or is there solace in the fact
that some part of the whole is spared,
despite history's vicissitudes -
the loss of faith, neglect, decay -
an anamnisis that alludes
to principles of perfect form,
born of genius and time -
synopsis, apogee of all
a people dreamed of and aspired to
in their lease on fate.
As a fountain effervesces,
fresh and self-perpetuating
arcs and arabesques inscribing
water's airborne trajectory,
so the ruins of a temple,
transposed to imagination,
glimmer with audacious phantom
trajectories of stone in space,
shaped by visionary leaps,
geometries of faith.