a Glass Floor Underfoot - 31. Standing-Stone

The imagery of the poem is a dark vision I can't quite see yet, but the picture, as always blends well and helps with the musing.  The picture triggered a visit to Wikipedia to learn that it, as others like it, is estimated to have been standing there for about 6000 years.  Thanks for food for thought, even though it takes a while to digest.  

As I think of this poem, I’m led to sunny fields and sunlit scenes where once ancients hailed an equinoctial dawn or the rising of an important constellation. But who is it that stands without a soul? Those rough hewn cultists? The stone itself? Or is it we who hide what was once in plain sight? 

Like @Backwoods Boy, I am still processing the meaning of this.  However, if I only focus on the feeling of the poem, I have a distinct reaction of the wonder I would feel in the presence of this ancient artifact at sunset.  Beautiful poem.

On 2/13/2023 at 11:40 AM, Backwoods Boy said:

The imagery of the poem is a dark vision I can't quite see yet, but the picture, as always blends well and helps with the musing.  The picture triggered a visit to Wikipedia to learn that it, as others like it, is estimated to have been standing there for about 6000 years.  Thanks for food for thought, even though it takes a while to digest.  

Thanks, Jon. The three poems of Jentzsch's Dämmerung collection are all very intriguing in their way. The first two seem to speak to the oldest human religion, which experts now like to call "superstition". The third one, which I've just posted, is about escaping predetermined (that is, culturally ingrained mores) [like the 19th century bugbear that Gay is somehow "bad"], and letting your wings open as you take to the sky.

As I say, three every intriguing poems  

On 2/13/2023 at 12:57 PM, Parker Owens said:

As I think of this poem, I’m led to sunny fields and sunlit scenes where once ancients hailed an equinoctial dawn or the rising of an important constellation. But who is it that stands without a soul? Those rough hewn cultists? The stone itself? Or is it we who hide what was once in plain sight? 

Thanks for your comments, Parker. Your question here had me going back to the original text. I'm not sure if I need to modify my translation or not, but it's pretty clear in the German that Robert Jentzsch is calling the drifting clouds "soulless." 

That being said, I do like the particular standing stone I placed as an image. For one, it's undeniably phallic; and two, the surface seems to possess the gnarled, grimacing features mentioned in the poem

On 2/13/2023 at 5:51 PM, raven1 said:

Like @Backwoods Boy, I am still processing the meaning of this.  However, if I only focus on the feeling of the poem, I have a distinct reaction of the wonder I would feel in the presence of this ancient artifact at sunset.  Beautiful poem.

Thank you, Terry. There is such artistic subtlety in neolithic monuments around the world, and they do appear in almost every region where humanity lived thousands of years ago. For example, at Stonehenge, one observer -- in only recent years -- pointed out an obvious fact about the artistry at play: the three inner "arches" of the circle are made of one standing stone with a naturally smooth surface, and one obviously selected for the naturally irregular landscape of its surface. Polished set against rough.

These monument builders were functioning at a very sophisticated level, for sure