Thursday, March 10, 2022

"gossamer in a basalt world"

"Our lives are plants, creating leaves and flowers that fall away and are lost forever.  I suppose that writing this account on these leaves will make little difference; words are gossamer in a basalt world.  Still I am glad I did it.  Soon we will descend to the ninth planet, and in this interregnum I feel completely cast loose, on the edge of a new world, a new life; stripped of all habits, opinions and expectations, I tremble like a blade of grass in the open air.  The old life swirls in my mind like rock jasmine blooms down a canyon stream, and I wonder what will live on into my new existence, for even my unsheathing feels like a dream to me now, fragmentary, delirious, unreal.  Still, spun into gossamer these parts of a world may remain within my ken: what we feel most, we remember best.  The weak link is."

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, Icehenge

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