PENKNIFE

i stalk past broken pines,
past stonewall partitions
swallowed by moss,
past the young oaks of autumn
with rust in their leaves,
their bodies skewed and contorted,
past barrel-chested chestnuts,
almost-forgotten giants,
their torsos thickset and stocky,
their trunks hacked and pruned
and farmed continuously
for hundreds of years,
by long chains of generations,
untill they are wild beasts of the abandoned land,
boulder-like, their bark
spiralling with the years,
long rebellious antlers sprouting from their crowns,
the ground strewn with their spiky offspring;
the sweet nutrients of the ancient ones.

and through the trees i spy it;
like a breaching whale,
grey as the sky,
shining mottled and silver
with its lichen and dirt:

the PETROGLYPH.

around it the ground has been cleared by the council
and a wooden signpost points to it.
jabalíes – wild, brittle-haired pigs of the woodlands
have torn up the turf for grubs and left a strafed lawn.
brambles are claiming the ground,
bracken arch over the brambles and claim the air above them,
and more young oaks tower over the bracken, claiming the sky.

the petroglyph sits as it always sat,
like so, for thousands upon thousands of years.

i too sit on the petroglyph,
to the side of the designs
and spirals and circles
and dots that cover it
like a busy tattoo.
there is nothing casual
to pick out from their meanings,
their reasons.
the dots could be stars or lunar months,
the concentric circles could be
energetical emanations,
halos pulsing,
concepts.
the spirals and labyrinths could be
the spirals and labyrinths of one’s own mind,
the search for meaning,
the exploration of the soul.
some people see soothsayers,
shaman,
medicine women,
tribal rituals,
declarations of war or independence,
others see demonstrations of wonder, of love;
i heart universe,
written for the all-seeing sun of the solstice.
others imagine pinpoints on a map of wilderness:
follow the petroglyphs to the sea,
or boundary stones marking off one world from another.

they could be portal stones,
bronze-age communication devices,
spirit-world temples or
telepathic channel openings.

i also imagine a gang of local kids
sitting here as recently as tomorrow,
sitting around these stones and getting
stoned on their spliffs and mushrooms,
and i imagine the same gang of kids
but 3 thousand years earlier,
inhaling the fumes from their dried herbs,
chomping on their psilocybin fungis,
and hallucinating little sprites and devils in the trees.
maybe they just came to this rock to get high and trip out…

not me, i’m sober as a judge.
but nevertheless i came to this place some weeks ago,
and i took out my phone,
and i scrolled and perused
the chaotic digital universe,
and suddenly i had the feeling of being watched.
there was no one around me,
i was being observed by these rock-stone carvers!
their reason became apparent to me in that moment:

they scratched these strange ruts and marks into the granite
in order to look/see into the future!

their eyes took in my world,
the travelling landscape,
the difference in atmosphere,
their gaze was human, curious.
they looked into my eyes and my inner eye
looked back into their eyes and their inner eye.
then they looked at my phone,
they marvelled at my technology.
they watched me scroll past pictures of people,
through videos of animals,
over symbols and puzzles which we understand as words.
they looked into the internet and saw the whole of the internet.
they saw me; they saw you.
they saw everything.
they did not show fear.
these people were brave, enlightened even.
they were from the past,
they were looking into their future,
they were seeing my present.
i felt honoured to receive their vision.

and today i arrived and after a few minutes
i heard a clicking in the forest behind me.
then i heard a clicking in the forest to the side,
then i heard a clicking in the forest in front.
it was a long, slow,
spiralling wind,
a gentle tornado.
ruffling through the autumn trees
and sending small showers of twigs and leaves
cascading down to the ground
and over the low stone walls.
the spiral faded,
and i wrote this.