The Great
By Alex Penland
He had a reason for his name: “The Great”
Now buried in the Valley of the Kings—
Statues and treasures, all of which abate
Behind the wheel of fate that spins and sings
And has four thousand years beneath it now!
Yet Ozymandias somehow persists—
Face on our screens, obscuring ancient snow,
We laugh, despair, continue to resist.
We plebeians, outside the formal walls
Marble temples, or gold as they see fit—
Endure as empires rise, stagnate, and fall.
And forget King Ramses when we see it.
Four thousand years have passed and still we stand
On broken stone, our visage in the sand.
Alex Penland was a museum kid. The child of a photographer and a Scuba diver, she spent her teenage years in the field: Penland has worked with Smithsonian archaeologists, NASA software engineers, volcanologists and photographers. She has been bitten by a shark, she watched the final shuttle launch from the fire escape outside Launch Control, and she has been a certified diver since age twelve. She likes dogs, long walks on the beach, and socialized medicine. Also books. She is one of two directors of The Writers’ Rooms in Iowa, an editor for hire, an amateur linguist and a Taurus. Her work has received many accolades, including an Honorable Mention for The Great in the Writer’s Digest Annual Contest 2017. You can follow Penland on Twitter @AlexPenname or visit her website at www.AlexandraPenn.com.
Photo credit: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU, via a Creative Commons license.