David Madore's WebLog: Gratuitous Literary Fragment #31 (of cities and men)

Every city has a pulse. I do not refer to the mere flicker of the traffic lights which sends streams of engines flowing on asphaltic arteries, no: I mean something deeper, something subtler, both unseen and unheard. A basal ticking, below the ebb and flow of human affairs, one that might emanate from the very foundations of stone. I have wandered through cities in ruin, drenched in moonlight, deserted since eons and abandoned by all living things, yet I could feel the throb unending. Still maybe the heart of Troy and Carthage beats: the ashes are never so cold that they cannot be kindled.

People do not build cities: cities build themselves. Only our certainty that man is the measure of all things makes us blind to the fact: for the giant is larger than the measure of man, and we fail to see it—or to recognize it. We see but the pageant that is meant for our eyes. Perhaps it is better so.