E
lena and I were watching Lord of the Rings while she was in pre-labor, just to kill the time a bit. Near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, as the party has camped on the banks of the River Anduin, Frodo walks past an enormous stone head, a relic of the days of Gondor's former glory, fallen and half-covered in overgrowth.
I remarked to Elena that I wished there were just giant stone heads lying in the forest like that, living monuments to our history. Somewhat bemusedly, Elena replied that there were. She's from Guatemala, a country that lives still amongst the bones of the Mayan civilization, and giant stone heads absolutely are a fixture of the wilderness.
Cultures should leave stones behind, I think.