Stonehenge

We were on the coach at 5:30 a.m. to make our appointment among the stones. They remain silent and enigmatic, on their grass carpet between the arms of two busy highways. Their meaning is unclear, a little menacing because unknown. In this way they are like a natural formation, however, in that they are beautiful of themselves with no human meaning attached. One still wants to know. In that way they are irritating, determinedly obscure, standing like snobbish foreigners who look down on our illiteracy.

It is frustrating not to know what they mean, what they meant for the people who put them there. Who were those people? Were they as cruel and violent as we are? Did slaves and miserable workers drag those stones across long miles under the force of the whip? What deluded prophets and despotic tyrants ordered this gigantic, immutable pattern made? As the changes occurred over the millennia, did they too wonder at the unreadable sign set down (or up) by their predecessors?

Once among them, it is clear that space aliens, druids, and King Arthur had nothing to do with these stones. They are not fantastic in any sense—they are solid and real as the turf they stand on. They are aligned to the summer solstice, and so have to do with years and seasons and time. I wonder if they were ever roofed? I wonder if people lived nearby? Did everyone believe building them was worth the time and resources? Did the people find God here? Is God here? Who was God that long ago? If he’s scary now, what was he then? Am I right to believe that our time is barbarous and cruel, and likely their time was as well? Have people ever been peaceful and content, accepting of their neighbors? Are we an exception in our restless making and destroying, or were they possessed of the same demons? Were they happy? Were their women happy? Children? Poor, and strangers?

But my words simply don’t express the solid, beautiful, enigma of the stones. It is so obviously a statement, and so obviously not obvious. What is it saying? It is a puzzle like the puzzle at the center of humanity. [2003]

It is just so very mysterious—it remains impervious to my efforts at understanding. The “magnificent old pile” in Salisbury I have some connection to—I understand the worshipful, religious impulse even if I don’t always share it. These, though, are inexplicable. I don’t understand them, and the huge amount of effort that went into getting them where they are is only frightening. What did it cost, in human terms? What made it worth it? [2005]

Misty. My hair is covered with damp. The sky is lighter in the east, or what I guess is the east. There is blue behind the mist. Birds twitter and screech - sheep bleat in the meadows around. I hear a distant cow. Also, all around, the roar and susseration of traffic - that intrusion of modernity - and the more menacing rumble of an aircraft overhead.

Crows nest in crevices between the capstone and posts, make saucy comments from above. I find that after taking my photos I care more about sitting on a bench than walking among the stones. The students are quiet now, sitting or moving silently rather than taking silly photos or playing pagan.

The light changes very slowly. The stones' surfaces are like small countries, landscapes, with lichen grown on their sides. Small deserts. We are invisible to the stones. The ones who raised them are invisible. The generations of crows are more permanent than we.

I am chilled in the mist. My feet are damp. A lapse in the sound of traffic, and a crow calls once, standing atop a stone. [2007]