Thursday, November 16, 2006

Motorcyclist's Memento Mori

Recently, when I was riding the bus and walking/bicycling home, I would pass this everyday, about a quarter mile from my house. When the light struck it right, it would strike me as both whimsical and ominous. The skeleton of some alien dragon, somehow amused by it's demise. It is of course, what is left of the chasis of a wrecked motorcycle. A memento mori for the Dragon, like the skulls writers once employed as paperweights, constant humbling reminders of the inevitability of death, and the futility of vanity. Yet, as I said, there is also something queer, and light-hearted about this carcass. I imagine it shambling down to the water, on moonless nights, and feasting on thrashing salmon.

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