John D. Shackelton

Henge

John D. Shackelton

We stopped at Stone Henge to reverence the mystery But couldn’t find it on the observer side of the barrier amongst the milling crowd with earphones that explained it all and cameras that would contain it.

But on the afternoon of summer solstice we found ourselves in Dartmoor among other standing stones— A trinity of ancient circles where the mystery remained.

In the lower circle, I stopped And stood in front of a stone my own height and remained still like another stone myself, part of the mystery, waiting for permission.

Eventually, I touched with tentative fingertips the roughness of that ancient stone and sensed in that touch the drawn-out drumming of Earth’s primeval pulse, slow as the seasons, silent as the phases of the moon.

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