The Sentinels of Silence

I keep a small, rusted iron key in a velvet-lined box, though I have long since forgotten which door it once opened. It is heavy, cold to the touch, and carries the weight of a threshold I can no longer cross. We spend our lives guarding such things—the keys to rooms we have vacated, the names of streets we no longer walk, the faces of people who have drifted into the blur of memory. There is a quiet, stubborn dignity in standing watch over what remains, even when the purpose of our vigilance has faded into the gray light of time. We are all, in our own way, sentinels of the things we refuse to leave behind, tethered to our posts by the simple, aching desire to ensure that nothing is truly lost to the wind. Does the weight of what we hold eventually become the anchor that keeps us from drifting away entirely?

José J. Rivera-Negrón has captured this quiet vigilance in his beautiful image titled Guard Bird on Duty. It reminds me that even in the wild, there is a profound sense of duty in simply staying put and watching over the fold. Does this image make you feel like a protector, or perhaps like someone waiting to be found?