Marks of Time

[mount_oregano]

This fine building, we are told, is fully one hundred years old. It has weathered storms and bluster that brought other buildings to the wrecking ball, and it has witnessed a full century of drama for us to acknowledge and commemorate.

Yet I see parts of this building that existed long before. Think of all the hands that touched this banister. Its straight-grained wood came from an oak likely a hundred years old when it was harvested.

The red bricks in the walls are made from clay, which is weathered from rocks, a process that takes thousands of years. At the front door, the limestone in the steps and threshold was formed no later than the dinosaurs. The slate shingles are older still. The pinkish granite cornerstone may have been formed from magma that cooled and solidified before life appeared on Earth.

But, you say, the moonlight shining through the windows must be even older.

True, the Moon may be as ancient as the Earth itself, billions of years old, but the light? It came from the Sun, only seven light-minutes away, which then bounced off the Moon, and in less than two seconds, it reached these windows. Moonlight is the newest thing in this room, younger than you or I, cool with the energy of youth.