Angkor Wat

When I was a kid my mom had this book with poems and stories I used to look through. It was in that book that for the first time I saw a picture of Angkor Wat. For some bizarre reason they used the picture as an illustration for a WH Auden poem. I have no idea what the poem was despite looking at his major works and trying to figure out what possible Auden poem could match the picture. Doesn’t matter because since that day I’ve been fascinated by Angkor Wat. This is my second trip here and in many ways a better trip for having seen it once this trip I tried to absorb the detail I missed the first time. It’s the largest religious monument in the world and certainly the most intriguing. Lost for centuries and threatened during the tragic Khmer Rouge years it is now on display for all to see. Mysterious, beautiful and inspiring . This should be on your bucket list!

Perhaps instead of the unknown Auden poem a better poem for the picture might have been

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;