Italy 2013 Challenge- Day 10: "All That Remains"

"All That Remains - Pompeii"
- soft pastel on paper
- approx. 8x6"/21x15cm.

The behemoth that obliterated this place still looms on the horizon, quiet, for the moment. Overhead, the sun shines brightly, reminding us that it has risen and set thousands of times since it was hidden from view here by not one, but two searing invasions of heat and ash.

In some ways, nothing changes, and yet, everything changes.

Once again people walk these streets, chat in the theater, wander through the square and gather in the marketplace, but the conversations are different. These are observers, not participants.

Slowly, over time, the light of day is allowed to peer again through newly reopened windows, to warm the paving stones of roofless porticoes, and mark the hours as it shifts the shadows of the columns still standing. The revelation continues as the mountain's ashen breath is painstakingly removed, a spadeful at a time.

But the city is gone. These streets, these alleys, these sunlit walls are all that remain.