Ozymandias: a sandy warning through time

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.
-”Ozymandias” by P.B. Shelley

This gem nearly got lost amidst the theme of this week for my students: Christmas break starts Thursday and I’m not gonna listen to anything you have to say. It’s okay, I pretty much felt the same way about anything they were telling me. But, despite all their groaning and my own sluggishness, let it not be missed that this is a pretty amazing piece of short poetry.

Take one look around you. How many people spend effort on inflating, bottling, controlling, and repairing their self-image? Take one look inside you. We do it, too. The amount of time and energy we spend on making ourselves look good is quite considerable, and this poem I think talks about pride taken to the extreme. Pride taken to an extreme, but this extreme is not unrecognizable.

For Ozymandias, or Ramses the Great to his ancient Egyptian homies, his ultimate sense of hubris paves the way for his ironic undoing. He commissioned a sculptor to memorialize his face and his power. Over three thousand years later, all that remains of the once-great king and his glory and civilization is a battered, crumbling memorial surrounding by nothing but blowing, endless sand. Time conquers even the most powerful. But despite the statue’s state of disarray, the arrogant sneer of Ozymandias remains visible. As once-pharaoh of one of the great world civilizations, Ozymandias’s sense of pride and power (“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”) is underpinned by the isolation it finds itself in now, yet the spirit of his commission remains. Nothing of the king’s glory remains, but the sculptor’s ironic message is still alive.

What’s lasting in this world aren’t achievements or physical conquests. What’s lasting is the spirit of our actions. People won’t remember all your accomplishments, but they might remember the kind of person you were along the way. What catalyzes our lives? A constant desire to establish permanence or a desire to make the most of the time we have?

“The Story We Know” (Martha Collins)

The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, just fine,
and Good bye at the end. That’s every story we know,

and why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

and then it’s Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
and Good bye. In the end, this is a story we know

so well we don’t turn the page, or look below
the picture, or follow the words to the next line:
The way to begin is always the same Hello.

But one night, through the latticed window, snow
begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
Good bye is the end of every story we know

that night, and when we dose the curtains, oh,
we hold each other against that cold white sign
of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
Good bye is the only story. We know, we know.

Hello, it’s wonderful to meet you. But goodbye, big day at work tomorrow, I really should be going. Sometimes it’s forced. Hello, I’m trying to find someone, a certain someone. Have you seen her? I believe she was wearing brown shoes with a crystal snowflake. Goodbye, I can’t believe he died this young, so shocking. I just had a beer with him three weeks ago. Hadn’t heard from him since.

Most of the time, this is the story we know. A story of transience, a story of prophylactic hesitation, a story which scoffs vulnerability. But this story is sane; it protects us. Yet, once the end arrives, where are we?

One day, perhaps a night, we will become confronted by our goodbye, our ultimate goodbye. Hello, it’s lovely to be here. Goodbye, my time looks like it might be up. What have we gained? What have we given? What difference have we made? What have we touched beyond ourself?

Tonight, we block out all the distractions, all the surface dives. We know we will have to leave in the morning. Suddenly, all the ritual, all the tap dancing, all the game playing, it all fades together, converging on oblivion. Nothing we have guarded can be taken with us.

Tonight, we embrace each other, holding each other tight. We turn toward each other, speaking of our humanity, our flaws, our fears. Tonight, as we gaze toward each other, we find out more about what we were sent here to do. We find out more about meaning itself. This is our reality.

Hello goodbye. This we know. But about the space in the middle of the two? Grab my hand and we’ll find out.