In 2019, before all the chaos of the past two years, I went with my friend to explore the ruins of the Temple of Athena and Zeus on the Greek island of Rhodes.
This location is full of mystery and beauty, a poetic intersection between the ingenuity of human construction and the inevitability of the decay of time.
I love the contrast between the eternally replenishing chamomile flowers and the fallen and broken temple column, being slowly dissolved by the moss and elements.
It truly recalls the Shelley poem:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
— Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias"
