“Across the desert of Khul Kharim,

There stands an ancient and mighty temple, worn with age,

Its two hundred monks drenched with sweat and bent with the labor of its maintenance.

There, enshrined, the graven image of a god;

Mighty, imperious, carved masterfully, his eyes thrust to the horizon, his lips curled in a smile of mastery;

All burnished with the worn hands of monks and the labor-marks of slaves.

Its grip upon the land about is absolute. It has stood for two thousand years.

So long that, indeed,

Cracks have begun to form.”

-Unknown