By Isolde 
Date: 22 January 1999

Artifact: A Trilogy (The End)

I happened to come across the artifact today, quite by accident.  I found 
it in one of those home safe deposit boxes (the type in which you place all 
your valuable papers and things).  I was going through this box because the 
writer of the poem, the giver of the gift, the maker of the promises of 
eternal love and devotion (written in his own blood, no less) had asked me  
to store some important papers of his in that box, and he needed them back 
now.  Because he is leaving.  I don't mind the leaving so much, I have been 
unhappy  in this relationship for quite some time, but I do wish I hadn't some 
across this artifact.

I wish it had been lost, or forgotten, or misplaced somewhere.  Because it 
reminded me, really brought home to me, the apparently mercurial nature of 
love or most (many) (some) people, and the frivolity with which they throw 
around words like love, and devotion, and forever.   It makes me wonder....
does anyone mean what they say?  Are they lying?  Or do they mean it at the 
moment and think that is enough upon which to volunteer promises of forever?

And if so, wouldn't it be better, more honest, to just say "I love you at 
the moment, with all my heart and soul"....and just leave out the parts 
that they either haven't really thought about or don't feel they can promise? 
So that these important, sacred sentiments and vows can REALLY mean something 
when they are said, so that they are more than just words, made cheap by the 
casualness with which they are tossed about.

Perhaps I am out of synch with the rest of the world.  I would never DREAM 
of saying something, of making a promise that I didn't MEAN...that I hadn't 
carefully thought through and determined I could and would keep.  What ever 
happened to honor?  To the sanctity of one's word?  To only vowing those 
things and taking on those obligations one stood ready and willing to fulfill, 
no matter the cost?

For when more and more people toss these words around lightly, eventually 
they lose their meaning, until they are no longer something sacred, or 
meaningful, until there is no honor left and our concepts of love and truth 
and devotion are reduced to something we find printed on fancy paper at a 
Hallmark store.

Perhaps I live in a dream world.  Perhaps I am unrealistic.  Perhaps I am 
naive.  Perhaps I am living in the wrong age, or the wrong dimension.  
Perhaps I am just sappy and stupid to expect that anyone would ever say 
something because they truly MEANT it, promise something because they had 
thought it through, knew the cost, and intended to keep their promise.


I guess it doesn't really matter.  Promises were made to me...volunteered...
unbidden.  Promises that were not and will not be kept.  The explanation for 
this turn of events?  "I changed my mind...sorry".  Oops.  Not even an 
accusation that I have changed, or failed, or broken some promise or 
obligation of my own.  Just a simple "Oops!".  

So which is the truth?  Which was the truth?  The heartfelt words inscribed 
n blood on parchment?  Or the statement about changing his mind?  Or both? 
And how, how in God's name, can I reconcile the two?

It isn't the loss of the man I mourn, it is the potential loss of trust, of 
faith, of hope, of innocence and wonder at the beauty of love.  And most of 
all, I mourn the further erosion of my belief that honor still exists in 
this world...for in a world without honor, what does anything mean?  

If honor dies, part of the human spirit dies with it.  In the words of Yeats:


"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."