My Sacred Discovery

A small range of hills
runs through the center
of my hometown
the town where I grew
the hill where I played
the hill was my yard
There was no family right next door
they lived down the hill
and I could hit the roof
of Mrs. Bradski's house
with a rock
I just threw rocks
I soon learned
that throwing rocks
can be more physically painful
than throwing words
It was a lesson
I learned from my brother
The scar is beneath
my right eyebrow

The sand rock
at the top of the hill
is named Hangman's Rock
since the hill is Hangman's Hill
next to Dinosaur Hill
where great cement dinosaurs
sit created in the 1930s
From the top
I could see both sides
of my town
and the roads
that ran through the gap
in the hills
between the two halves

Around me sat the ghosts
of so many who came
before me
to the top of this rock
to sit and gain wisdom
from seeing the prairie
to the east
and the Black Hills
to the west
I was not alone
as I felt
or feel even this day

After school
Mother made me practice
the piano
performing her dream
that I did not choose
instead of baseball
or sitting in silence
Jiddu Krishnamurti says thought
creates gODD
and silence of thought
creates the sacred
Very little was sacred in my life

I learned to please others
and never please myself
except with food
or the vacancy of approval

Hangman's Rock
was once the bottom of a sea
or the shore of that sea
a great sand rock outcropping
certainly older than the cement dinosaurs
that pretended to show history

Sitting on the top of Hangman's Rock
was my connection to history
my connection to the sacred
I won't fully understand
until the moment of my death
when I join the small animals
body upon body
that created the compressed sand

Hangman's Rock
is privately owned
a fence now blocking access
just as so many block access
to Krishnamurti's sacred silence

I give every lonely boy
who became a lonely man
the top of Hangman's Rock
in my last will
because it will be mine
sacred
until my last day


Barry G. Wick
February/March 2018