BRIEF FLICKERINGS: Some thoughts on the rise and fall of civilizations

	After Rome burns
	build legends

	After Byzantium falls
	plant seeds

	After Xi'an is looted
	clear the rubble

	After Timbuktu is deserted
	offer poetry

	After each city becomes a mausoleum
	reflect on greatness

	When civilization after civilization
	succumbs to dust
	rest above fear –

	More worlds exist
	than can be counted

	The waves we call "life"
	continually vanish & reappear


Jules: 	  (raising his eyebrows) Is this optimistic err pessimistic?

Philyra:  Kuriously both.

Jules: 	  (feigning perplexity) Whad kin'na logic 's that?

Andrei:   (with playful jest) Logic? Isn't that jest a rhetorical tool fer winning arguments?

Philyra:  Many have claimed so.

Elijah:   Isn't there a higher order with pure mathematical beauty?

Philyra:  (toying with the others) What an enchanting myth!

Soo: 	  Aye, strange things argh human dreams . . .



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from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY:  An artwork, a poem, and a dialog about how civilizations appear and disappear. 
KEYWORDS: ancient civilizations, historiography, historical flows, social cataclysms

Begun: 1997 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 2018 in Yokohama, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted
by T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ]

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TRANSLATIONS

BŬLGARSKI: http://www.tnewfields.info/Translations/Botev2.htm
DEUTSCH:  http://www.tnewfields.info/es/punto.htm
ESPAÑOL:  http://www.tnewfields.info/es/vulkan.htm
FRANÇAIS: http://www.tnewfields.info//fr/flamme.htm
NIHONGO:  http://www.tnewfields.info/jp/teikoku.htm
URDU:     http://www.tnewfields.info/Translations/Azqan2.htm
ZHŌNGWÉN: http://www.tnewfields.info/zh/ying-guang.htm