- the grounded earth
- ἔσονται (they will be)
Years ago I read (I think in Guns, Germs, and Steel) about the possibility that Australia had been populated twice by early Homo sapiens and that the first wave, coming across a now-submerged land bridge, wiped out the local megafauna resources then extincted themselves from the resulting resource starvation. Now, quickly scanning of the book’s index, I can’t find a reference to any extinction.
Either way, I’ve had that false memory for a long time and have often thought about the last inhabitants as they dwindled to one, and the final days of that one. (The evocative inspiration goes at least back to just after college when I created some initial sketches for a painting around the concept. The painting, of course, never happened.) The idea of a primitive human with their potentially more animistic world view living their days alone is haunting. How did they explain to themselves–as much as self-reflection existed within their self–the initial loneliness and then prolonged, endless isolation? And then they’re gone and the land is empty again.
The two movements of this string quartet loosely contrast the last days of that final survivor against the subsequent quiet and eventual arrival of another people.
(written from 15 May 2021–3 Aug 2021)