Igor Clark

Zoom out from here. Pass through the wrought-iron gateway, back away down the churned, dried mud path ’til your feet are planted firmly on the cracked light grey tarmac, Leroy's firmament-focused monument still in your sights; feel the fixity, and spin yourself slowly ’round. A solitary slatted wooden house; ploughed fields, meadows a little further off, woods covering distant hills. How patiently has this land lain silent, immemorial, still and strong, untouched, its surface barely scratched, blissfully unaware of the arrival of these mayflies who flare briefly in an illuminated access of passion, a charge of excitement, yet immediately fade, scattering their corporeal detritus as though a thin cover of dust - and there is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither is there any more pain, for these former things have passed away - and still the land lies in dignified repose, unmolested, timeless … fleeting.