i wonder if stonehenge

  George Borrow grasping for a past temple

  or the hands who raised the monoliths of stone.

  I am looking for a way back, a way to dig

  deep into the earth and stumble on the Stonehenge of before.

  Who grappled with gravity to create a roofless

  sanctuary, a kind of crossroads?

  Unlike Borrow, I must take in these gray kings

  from a distance, roped off and monitored.

  The crows above flirt with the stone, lighting

  on the rocks with a practiced ease. Sheep nearby graze

  as they have since the rocks’ birth, remembering a time

  when they roamed freely within the stone boundary.

  At first I am underwhelmed, seeing Stonehenge through the blurred

  window panes of the tourist bus. Small baby teeth in a great maw

  of grass and sky. But shuffling closer, the stones become the mighty

  incisors I previously envisioned. Not skyscraper tall, but an ancient equivalent. Maybe

  it didn’t take as much back then to feel small,

  to evoke the sublime.

  Go back in time and see it.

  As the gray kings tower over me I long for the original,

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  the genesis. Was it a sacred space, a sacrificial altar

  or bridge of decision? Was it carved, intricate faces

  and creatures worn away by the rough hand of wind

  or time? Was it painted, brilliant shades of turquoise

  and emerald or subdued tones of pearl and coral?

  Countless miles to get the stones.

  Now my imagination is populated with mighty ships,

  rope thicker than my arms constraining the proud stone kings.

  They would have sat silently, regally, disdaining their capture.

  Upon reaching land their servants would drag them hundreds

  of miles to a wild green hill. And although the stone kings

  would frown, they would stand with their backs to each other in time.

  Walking on dead bodies.

  Barrow mounds surround us, housing glittering kings

  of old with rusting fragments of gold and sword. These weathered

  stone kings stand vigil over flesh and bone captors. Inspiring awe

  when earthly kings have sunk into eternal rest below the grinning

  stone faces. The fleshy kings completely invisible to me, only a story,

  a slight swelling in the ground.

  A door to the other side.

  The layering of boundaries, the threshold

  to something bigger than me slips under my skin.

  I want to break through the rope and time

  to a silent congregation of menhirs,

  holding private and significant counsel.

  Archons, gatekeepers to the ark of rock and hidden bone.

  Look at me.

  Pictures fill the air with digital electricity, and I feel

  the aftershock. The masses look through lens, an intentional

  barrier far thicker than rope. Stonehenge does not speak. No

  whisper of its ancestors. No special melody or whistle

  from the rocks when the wind blows. But others speak,

  whisper. The people are part and parcel of the stones, and they talk.

  One more, one more, one more.

  Maybe a reference to just one more photo of squirming children,

  or maybe through modern mouths an ancient sound

  of encouragement, Stonehenge pulled from another land

  and constructed. Irish stones, grouped together

  in rings and raised into otherworldly doorways,

  like mighty stone bards or prophets.

  I don’t know.

  Without the strict ropes and rules confining stones

  to a written history and commandment,

  these gray kings speak.