The Persistence of Bone

There is a patience in things that have stopped growing. In the north, we see this in the driftwood bleached by salt and wind, or the skeletons of trees caught in the permafrost. They do not decay; they wait. They have outlived the urgency of the season. We spend our lives in a fever of movement, convinced that to be alive is to be in motion, to be changing, to be reaching for the next hour. But look at the desert. Look at the way the earth holds onto what has already finished its work. There is no tragedy in the stillness. It is merely a different way of existing, a stripping away of the unnecessary until only the architecture of the soul remains. We are so afraid of the silence that follows the end of a thing. We forget that the silence is where the shape of the truth is kept. What remains when the heat finally stops asking for your breath?

Rainer Mirau has captured this stillness in his image titled Deadvlei. It is a testament to the beauty found in the long, dry wait. Does the desert feel as heavy to you as it does to me?