on immortality

perhaps we’re all, because:
human nature, a bit concerned with
legacy, after we reach a certain age.
but for some, we don’t want to j u s t
leave a mark, we want it to be a
permanent one. i think about books,
how they crumble, back into carbon
and lampblack, the stuff from which
they come. even though there are
scribes, conservationists whose own
life’s works are preserving the ones
history deemed more important
than their own. paper, yes, it’s a
delicate thing, but what of the pharaohs?
we still have the bones of the structures