A few months ago I was on a dirt road that winds through the Cochise Stronghold in Arizona and drove past this dead cow.

Death is on my mind lately and those thoughts made me revisit this photo.

Alone on the road the cow dies. The world moves on.

We humans have elaborate rituals and hopes about death but this is what it is. A simple nothing. No great ripple in the pond. No rending of the clothes of the universe. There is no special wonder in life. It is neither holy nor is it magical.

People live and die. Some lamentations happen, some sad times, some happy memories. Then the clock ticks and the world moves on with nary a thought. The greatest who ever lived are ghosts of some tiny bit of accumulated wisdom and inspiration. The rest of us get a tombstone or a picture on a mantle, a story that’s retold if we’re lucky and then even that spark fades.

Well, that was interesting. Sir, may I have another?
Sorry bloke, that’s all you get. You should have tried harder.

There is futility and no choice. The cow dies alone in the desert. It’s cow friends mill about for a bit then move on, they can do nothing. The cow is fodder for others, the others fodder for others.

In death life is reborn. In life there is struggle and conflict. This seems sad to me but then it’s also seemed baffling and sad to billions before me so it’s nothing new.

The wheel turns. The cow dies alone on the road. We marvel at the horror of that moment and pretend and make stories and sooth our rattled nerves. We shake our noise makers at the demons outside the campfire and are proud because we drove them away.