Standing On The Great Myth Poem by Rebekah Gamble

The mountains spread before me.
Rearing up from the sands
comes ancient audacity,
on which I stand solidly,
facing truth,
facing more
than man, cosmos, or thought-

Here ends the world I know,
there begins the myth of the wall.
Here lies the expression
of the unknown.
Beyond is the strength, the being
of a fearless people,
not only stone-faced
in the face of the captivity of solitude,
but anxious for the blessed punishment.
'What need is there, '
they reason,
'for the rest of the world? '

It is hard to believe
that the stone dragon
is not simply born
from the sweet, sacred ground.
Can this be truly made,
mastered,
by human hands?

The wind and the rain
crash against the stone
like the sea against a cliff.
The wind. The rain.
The howling of man.
The tears of the condemned.
In the myth of the wall,
the voices of the past
become the voices of the present-
those whose cries are silenced
by the wind and the rain;
those who scream of the division.

I stand
on the stone monument
to the necessary division of man.
Here ends the world,
here begins the mystery-
the other side
of the wall.