What if one day

the Antarctic ice melts

and a forgotten civilization is revealed?

Not our ancestors,

not even human,

perhaps reptilian

or like wolves upon two feet.

Whatever they were,

they died long before us

and for uncounted ages

they were buried beneath ice and

snow.

Palaces in ruins,

empires in shambles,

languages unlike anything

we have seen before,

forgotten syllables

in strange non-Human tongues

which we will never know.

That mystery haunts us,

here were instruments we could not play,

weapons for a war that must have meant

something once, a long, long time ago.

Enough to kill and die,

but why did they fight?

We will never know.

We were not the first upon this earth,

we too may one day,

like them, vanish,

not even stories to recall

that we ever were.

What then did it all mean,

these palaces they built,

these songs they sang,

this mausoleum

that was once a civilization?

For a moment,

only a moment,

in the vast ocean

of cosmic time,

they were.

For a moment,

only a moment,

in the vast ocean

of cosmic time,

we were.

Perhaps,

the Universe remembers,

will not forget them,

this form so lovingly crafted

into which life was once breathed.

How could the Universe forget them,

the earth must remember them,

must remember them

as she remembers

every form of life

which once walked upon her

and went down into the dust

never to rise up again.

Who’s to say,

they do not live on in us,

science tells us

we are all kin

in the great web of life,

that memories dwell

within the very soul of the race.

We carry on,

we are their succesors,

they paved the way for us

as our ancestors paved the way for us

as we pave the way for our children,

the line continues,

the golden thread of life continues,

from remotest ages

unto remotest times,

linking us all

by cords unbreakable.

Should be a story. Or in a story. Preface to a story. Something.