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
There used to stand a statue. Its head was made of fine gold, a chest and arms of silver, stomach and legs of bronze, feet of iron, and hands of clay. It was huge. It was extraordinary. Those that looked upon it were dazed and afraid. The longer they stared, they watched a stone cut out, not by human hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron breaking them to pieces. Another stone cut itself out striking the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold; breaking them into pieces so fine that they were dust on the floor which a gust of wind carried away so that there were no traces of the statue that could be found. The stones though that struck the statue became great rocks of earth that became a mountain that can be seen by all.
ReplyDeleteGreat story huh? Except it’s not.
With the balls of brass, bodies of clay, and feet of stone,
ReplyDeleteThese things before me let their sabers rattle and sway,
Spells slung to the minds of men,
In ways that break and never unite,
Leading them to adore bulls of manure and gold,
Preaching… Teaching… Leeching.
Thanks for the lesson – maybe it will teach these after warriors more,
Then the High Priest vainly spewing his hot air,
With a forked tongue and prosthetic limb,
Of pyrite.
Warning! Yield your ears not to the word of the prophecy of stone as espoused by the Prophet of Clay. Stone sees all and quietly adds them to the naughty list. Yield not your heart to take away the words of the Stone. Stone knows the heart and will replace your share of the gift with nothing but a twig in a smelly shoe at your door.
ReplyDeleteDoes one really wish to be everlasting, to be immortal? To be chilled by the coldest of winds: time? To suffer through conflicting wills, confounding minds, and ignorant interpretations of what is divine or true? To have to show kindness, generosity, patience, and love to mortals who don’t understand, care, or strive? No, if you wish immortality, then we have not done a good enough job in showing you just how it is the very definition of… Hell.
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a... a girl on... fire.
DeleteTake your cake,
DeleteTake your miracles,
Take your gifts,
Take your desire for immortality,
Take your desire for mounds of gold,
Take your desire for endless false pretense,
And suck our fallus.
I have heard... that such as... yours is perhaps... more girth and... width than any... man
DeleteI have heard, I have seen, I have known that the devil and his have the smallest of all but are the biggest by far.
ReplyDeleteIf we should believe that a prophet of belief really countenances the falsehoods, crocodiles, and mishaps that their biographers father onto them in repeated reviews, admitting the interpolations and theories of each new father and fanatic then it should be easy for each of you to arrive at the irresistible conclusion of the sound mind that the prophets that others have birthed are imposters to the real thing. The reality is none of these real prophets meant to impose themselves, their wills, or thoughts on mankind but rather to guide them away from perilous confines of false reason, fake religions, and out of the grip of priests of superstition who lay snares to entangle all in the web of their law, their beliefs, and theirs.
ReplyDelete