time on this rock/is a tornado's sweep
"Man Living On the Rock" Hershman R. John
Alone. Non-existent. Ephemeral.
I am empty like my closest family, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the
Meteors....Every day I watch them rise and fall, rise and fall. I am
frozen on a desolate rock ringing through the cosmos like a blind bird
flying at night amid blinking fireflies.
I have a block body, a bit too symmetrical and perfect. I have a hole
etched through my round head, barely thin enough to hold a thought. My
Creator scraped away my knowing. I would never know another warm
soul. How does "warm to the touch" feel?
I pray for rain sometimes, so I can watch the cornstalks grow from season
to season and feel the coolest raindrops fall on my body's outline. When a
sudden breeze blows the rain off me, they are only sad hints. I've heard of
coffee and hints of cinnamon and mints added to it, like shapes in the fog,
maybe shapes in mist.
Shhhh...listen and look for the tiger's breath.
A Vietnamese monk once said to me.
He knew me as something real and holy.
I don't remember my birth, and immortality is not me. Time on this rock
is a tornado's sweep, cruel and unforgiving. There is no love, like there is
no end. Time is where the sky and earth meet. Where they meet in a forest.
An oak tree in the forest where a leaf is being chewed by a little deer. The
deer's eyelid and the glassy vision, which is round.
Time is round.
I meet many people each sunrise. They touch me and smile sometimes;
sometimes they wonder about me like they would some petrified dinosaur
egg. They really never see me; they leave without ever touching the
loneliness. I once overheard to Navajos from a nearby reservation sitting
in their red truck talking. One talked about a beautiful
dark-eyed Navajo girl he'd met at a '49 the night before.
"Did you ask about her clans?"
"Nope, just fun," said the lucky one with a sly grin.
I thought to be young and alive and to feel flesh would be like a
drop of water touching my thirsty lips. Sex for me is only chalk dust, not
the creamy marshmallow feeling they laughed about.
I eavesdropped for a few more minutes before
they left without ever noticing me listening to them. But the one sly
Navajo did say something I'll never forget.
"Don't ever waste a wish."
I made a wish.
I wished for love, for purpose, and I wished a vandal
would chisel me off this Earth. Because that for me is death,
or because that for me is life, my wish.
So tell me how a man should live.
Here I am, next to you:
A petroglyph on a rock.
Alone. Non-existent. Ephemeral.
I am empty like my closest family, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the
Meteors....Every day I watch them rise and fall, rise and fall. I am
frozen on a desolate rock ringing through the cosmos like a blind bird
flying at night amid blinking fireflies.
I have a block body, a bit too symmetrical and perfect. I have a hole
etched through my round head, barely thin enough to hold a thought. My
Creator scraped away my knowing. I would never know another warm
soul. How does "warm to the touch" feel?
I pray for rain sometimes, so I can watch the cornstalks grow from season
to season and feel the coolest raindrops fall on my body's outline. When a
sudden breeze blows the rain off me, they are only sad hints. I've heard of
coffee and hints of cinnamon and mints added to it, like shapes in the fog,
maybe shapes in mist.
Shhhh...listen and look for the tiger's breath.
A Vietnamese monk once said to me.
He knew me as something real and holy.
I don't remember my birth, and immortality is not me. Time on this rock
is a tornado's sweep, cruel and unforgiving. There is no love, like there is
no end. Time is where the sky and earth meet. Where they meet in a forest.
An oak tree in the forest where a leaf is being chewed by a little deer. The
deer's eyelid and the glassy vision, which is round.
Time is round.
I meet many people each sunrise. They touch me and smile sometimes;
sometimes they wonder about me like they would some petrified dinosaur
egg. They really never see me; they leave without ever touching the
loneliness. I once overheard to Navajos from a nearby reservation sitting
in their red truck talking. One talked about a beautiful
dark-eyed Navajo girl he'd met at a '49 the night before.
"Did you ask about her clans?"
"Nope, just fun," said the lucky one with a sly grin.
I thought to be young and alive and to feel flesh would be like a
drop of water touching my thirsty lips. Sex for me is only chalk dust, not
the creamy marshmallow feeling they laughed about.
I eavesdropped for a few more minutes before
they left without ever noticing me listening to them. But the one sly
Navajo did say something I'll never forget.
"Don't ever waste a wish."
I made a wish.
I wished for love, for purpose, and I wished a vandal
would chisel me off this Earth. Because that for me is death,
or because that for me is life, my wish.
So tell me how a man should live.
Here I am, next to you:
A petroglyph on a rock.