Stone Remains

The mountain does not hurry. It has seen the rain come and go for longer than the memory of any man. We look at the stone and we see permanence, but the stone is only waiting. It is shedding its skin, grain by grain, into the valley below. There is a patience in the rock that we cannot mimic. We are made of soft things—breath, pulse, the frantic need to be somewhere else. We stand before the cliff and feel small, not because of the height, but because of the silence. The rock does not need to speak to be understood. It simply exists, anchored in the earth, indifferent to the mist that tries to swallow it. We spend our lives trying to leave a mark, yet the mountain leaves nothing but its own shadow. What remains when the mist finally lifts?

Minh Nghia Le has captured this stillness in the photograph titled The Three Sisters. The stone holds its ground against the rising vapor, quiet and absolute. Does the mountain feel the weight of the air, or is it already gone?