What is cast in stone?
Take the Cake and the Miracle
Stone
"Hear me!" I boom.
Like thunder, I roll. Like flames, I roar.
"For I am here!"
Clay
"Where are you?" you cry.
"To wield your sword of might against my enemies? For my enemies are yours."
Wounded, you rage. Aggrieved, you howl.
"Hear our suffering!"
Stone
"I speak," I say.
I say and I say and I say.
Clay
You ask.
In silence and in audience, you ask, "Bless us.
Will us our lists, for our lists are wanting.
Wants we are wanting."
Stone
"You speak."
I wonder. Will I ever hear humility? I miss it.
"I hear," I sigh.
Clay
You appeal.
"Smiter of enemies, be not still."
You threaten.
"Forgiver of all, break not your promise."
Stone
I have. I am. I will.
That is all and that is enough.
Clay
You crow, "Enough!"
"Tomorrow is not for triumph."
Fists raised, you vow, "Today is for triumph."
"For ours is the glory!"
Stone
I sweep with my eye, the atom and the sparrow, the mouse and the whale.
"Breakers of promises," I lash.
"Take the cake and the miracle and believe nothing!"
Stone's Note
The Clay doesn't speak for the Stone; the Stone speaks for itself. For the Clay doesn't will for the Stone; the Stone wills for itself. So:
when the Clay purposes to be the will of the Stone,
what is such purpose for?
*
Clay's Note
The Stone is stone. But the Stone is also clay.
It is interpreted. It is commented on. It is parsed and translated.
Because the Stone is misunderstood. Only the Clay can make sense of it.
Its word. Its act. Its will.
As for the Clay:
the Stone is a stone of its word. It promises, so long as the Clay believes in the unbelievable, to be all and enough. But of course, no stone can reasonably expect to be all and enough for the Clay. The Clay is, after all, only clay. Hence:
there is no ambition the Clay cannot conceive. Including casting itself as the Stone.
In stone.
*
Postface and Postnote
What is cast in stone?
Ideas and ideals. What's unbelievable and miraculous. We cast in stone what's worth preserving against the erosion of time.
Democracies become kingdoms. Kingdoms become democracies. Theocracies become republics. Republics become theocracies.
When what rises, falls and what falls, rises, time alone preserves nothing. Even that which is cast in stone, is whipped by winds and worn by sands. Until all that is left, is us.
Therehence, what is forever becomes clay. Formed by interpretation and comment and parse and translation, a "new" forever is conceived.
Never mind what was once preserved against decay. By rage and howl, what's "new" is cast in stone.
Ideas and ideals. What's unimaginable and inconceivable. We harden what's eternal against eternity. As if the future present will not, by wound and grievance, reform what is clay.
*
Author's Note
Everyone wants to be immortal.
Everyone wants what's theirs to be immortal too.
But such wants are not gifts.
Except insofar as object lessons on the hubris of would-be stones are gifts of only clay.
Presents that take the cake and the miracle and believe nothing.
M
