IRON MAN You get the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age, now we have steel, and plastic, and what else? What will you find there a million years from now, recorded in the layers? What will the last layer be, on top? A layer of ash? And star dust again, like it was in the beginning. Yes if there were ages of man and days for creation, no matter how many days they were, it would start I suppose with star dust, golden, the stuff from which we are made. And clay pots and clay vessels, what we made with our hands when the world was soft and easily tended. And then we found stones and did things with stones, and blood was shed, and life. Then a layer of metal, tin and copper and bronze and brass, maybe glass. Glass a ceramic, and a product of sand and stone. Fire was the one to give us these layers. Then iron, oh iron, and wasn’t it hard, and wasn’t it harsh and heavier than the others? And didn’t the hammer form spearheads and arrow heads, and were ploughs not beaten into swords? And then another, steel, and with steel we did many things, mixing the metals. And there you will find it too, the steel age, written in the strata. Dead engines and dead car bodies, and rusting away, and what is stainless and what is chromed losing its shine. And gold behind it all, that can never lose its shine. But last of all a plastic age, above that, when gold was no longer found in the earth but inside bank vaults. And an age of paper, and books, but all we have is plastic, that was waiting to burn. And burn it did, and everything with it, so only ash remained, and dust, but not that star dust, no, but the dust of nuclear waste. And all life was gone, slipped off to some other planet. And all that remained was that chaos and desolation from the beginning, when the earth was without form, and void, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. But here stands iron man still, stone man, who has feelings yet, and a softness inside, and an inner core that is human, but outside he is as hard as the steel and the flint and the diamond cutter. He stands for all we will be and all that will remain. A memory of love that he nurtures still, and a softness that is childlike. But an exterior as hard as any of these, and able to withstand still more. Iron man, it is me, and iron heart, and iron will, and iron fist. And a rod of iron I must wield, and a tongue of flame. And I must press down the grapes and watch the wine flood the earth, unto the horse’s bridles. And wonder why we could not have remained where we were in the garden, tending the flowers.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:09:38 +0000
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