Lighting the Way

Meaning of meaning.

Composite image. Credit: poweroffforever / jpkirakun.

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I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”

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You hardly notice the movement of time until the current pulls you beyond some marker. It happened to me the other day at the store. My son graduated from toddler sizes. He can now wear big boy clothes. It made him so proud, slipping on an extra-small shirt, reedy arms twisting through the sleeves. A mop of dirty blond hair rises above the neckline. Big smile.

“Slow down,” I said. He thinks I’m talking about trying on clothes.