Challenging Poetry

Sri Lanka: Sigiriya

and the king saw water
and a high place,
and said, here I will build
my palace, guarded by a lion’s
might, surrounded by gardens
and pictures
and a wall polished mirror bright.
and so it was done,
but in time, the lion’s head
drifted into sand, and the frescos faded
and the waterways
he built, became the dry wonder
of archeologists and engineers,
and on his mirror wall,
seekers wrote poems
and tags and messages for the next
person to pass,
and so the fortress died,
drip by drop, as blood
from the heart.

line count: 20

Author's Note ▶︎

I think the thing that struck me about this ancient fortress was that it didn't last more than the king's lifetime. Almost as soon as it was built, it ceased being what it had been planned to be, and drifted into a monastery and a pilgrimage destination and a place where people wrote on the walls. Which says more about transience than I ever could. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya