Tolerance - Part 3
"The Elk" by Edgar Allen Poe - http://slicesofamerica.com/poe01.htm
In the dark night of my soul, asleep in the cave of a deer, surrounded by hypodermic needles and condoms...
I dreamt there could be morning. Despite my paralyzed legs, and bones of cold stone, I felt a warming light, and rose...
Into this morning, I walked about. A landscape like a garden or a dream. I thought to chase the light and so...
I scrambled up through the rocks and brambles, skin burnt and scratched. Heavy with fatigue I thought I saw through trees grown from stone...
Alas, not an Elk, but a man enlightened, wising trough the forest overgrown, standing guard, or overwhelmed?
Climbing to the top of the rock, I saw the visage of a man weather-worn but staid, as if locked inside his prayer, lost amid the weeds, and he said: "TOLERATION."
Who would stand and guard a forest home, forlorn; and would a tree so save a man? Or a nation? What the limits of Nature's toleration?
I scurried again down the hill. Or fell.
"Look across the creek, about 150 feet up the hill. See the bronze statue? Some people call it 'William Penn', but its real name is 'Toleration'. It honors the political and religious tolerance sought by Europeans settling here.
"The statue stands on Mom Rinker's Rock. Some locals say Mom Rinker was a witch. Others say she was a Revolutionary patriot who spied on the British.
"Well-known city leader John Welsh bought the 10-foot-tall statue, then had it set here in 1883."
Morning On The Wissahiccon
