Pebbles by Tim Taylor

Once, there was no ‘us’, just ‘I’. Proud monolith, I bestrode the land, commanded it, immune and constant for all time, I thought.

That was hubris: no other mountain challenged me, but subtler forces were at work. Wind wore me down with jagged fragments of myself; water sank deep fingers in my flesh that froze and fractured
me. Soft snow, seeming so gentle, built a second mountain on my back to grind my bones. When that at last was melted, we were no longer one but many; bright streams raced to carry us away.

A stump remains, though not for long: nature still harries it; men bore and burrow for the silver in its veins. We that are gone no longer feel a kinship with it. We have embraced our journey, come to love the cold caress of water, our slow dance of descent towards the sea. Division, we have learned, is not defeat, and change is not surrender.

Beneath the sea, we know, is stillness: as we gather there, we shall know peace. And with peace, in time, will come rejoining: many shall be one again. We shall be patient – for who knows, perhaps one day the restless earth will raise us up to mountainhood once more.  

"Sea,Rock and Clouds" by pedrosimoes7 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.