Sunday, July 10, 2011

Aberration

Long ago we handled things differently. When our grandparents grew old and light
we cared them on our backs as they whispered their stories in our right ears.
After they died we shined their skulls and made a perch of our right shoulders.
Eventually they became impossible to handle what with the heads of
heads of heads in tow. So we stacked them and lashed them together
in fields of waving green grass. Now I know what you're thinking, and no, they
did not become our totem poles. Over the long haul the heads slowly broke down
entering each other , forming a lingham, a tor. This protrusion, an aberration
on the landscape, housed the upward thrust of the ancestors. Only a few cultures
still create the form and carry its deeper meaning. Coats of arms, shields, ledgers,
stories recorded or spoken, all were carried along mouth to mouth, hand to hand.
But it is the aroused stone that still represents the full power of accumulation, knowledge.

2
There still remains one mystery, vaguer, hidden, but seemingly ordinary.
What of the voice that appears at the door so early in childhood and then
carries on until our death? No one hears this voice except the sole listener.
Haunting at times, guiding, pestering, and then matter of fact. A voice that
could be whispering in your right ear, right there, just over your shoulder.

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