Day: September 15, 2020
Maybe In The Dark
Putting My Feet in the Dirt September Writing Prompt #13:. Maybe in the dark

Photo: Araldo De Luca
Tomb of King Seti I
Each figure, each color, each gesture
are meant to tell a story.
Each name, each symbol,
Each tribute, each curse
are meant to be read
in the darkness
by the dead
each night
for eternity
under an ocean of time and sand
a story carved into rock and marble, painted with skilled hands,
maybe they all knew that here in the dark, those stories will never end.

Ancient Egyptian stela (painted limestone) depicting the sculptor Qen worshiping Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari.
August 24th 79 AD
Putting My Feet In The Dirt September Writing Prompts#10: Soft Spoken Secrets
I’m not sure exactly why today’s prompt brought to my mind the final moments of Pompeii, but it did.
I went to the Pompeii Exhibit when it was in Seattle about 5 years ago and the video below was part of the exhibit- the floor in the little theatre where we watched this shook and the room filled with smoke.
You had the sense that you were sitting in a room ( the walls looked like blocks of stone and we sat on benches that looked like they had been carved out of stone too) in Pompeii and looking out the window and to the city below and across to Mount Vesusvius herself.
Knowing what was going to happen was bad. Seeing dates and times made it real. Seeing the birds fly off was the scariest part for me.
But of course, it only got worse for Pompeii as the day moved forward.
In the end, hidden under all of that ash was Mount Vesusvius’ secret as well as the evidence of what she did over 2 days and the horror she caused to the residents of Pompeii.
A long time after the fact we learned all about it.
It was a softly spoken secret that you could hear in the sound of the burning.
.That’s all you could hear because the birds, the river and the port were all gone and there wasn’t much else to hear.
But hidden under the ash, buried below the Earth Vesusvius’ secret would come out and the world and the curious would learn it.
I guess the birds were singing on that day.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Photo A.M. Moscoso