Simorgh

Phoenix rise every five hundred years. That's sort of convenient. There's not much around to remember. But what must their memories be -- to live and die the years of earth and fire -- what do they think on their pyre as ash? How do they come to terms with time when time and existence are linked to the coming and going of the planets, with the birth and death of a system?

Meteors, however, rise on cycles unknown. The same rock running from gravity over stretches and bends. What are the memories of stone? And what must they think of the Phoenix, that creature tied to flame and earth? As the meteors blaze and quarrel with the firebird in the night sky they speak their experience:

All things begin in fire,
all things give way to ash.
Ash becomes stone becomes fire.
We are one and the same,
in a time you can't remember,
and again in time you can't see.

Just as they feud on the dark canvas, painting a pointless streak overhead, we resist what we must become, the rock and fire and ash, burning and hardening in Time's garden.