The Inselberg

Tags

Ayre's Rock, Central Australia, Inselberg, poem, poetry

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐠

I am a rock surrounded by a plain

Swept by the desert winds — a little rain

Falls on me — down my flanks it flows like tears.

I’ve rested on this plain a million years.

About me there is little mystery:

I once was sand beneath a sparkling sea —

I turned to rock, I hardened into stone,

Then by gigantic force I rose alone;

Was thrust upward while all else sank below;

But all of that is now so long ago.

Came lately creatures made of flesh and bone,

Then men who killed them with my brother stone.

To them my body was of little worth,

For little lived upon my hardened earth.

Came then the men who climbed upon my back;

But they no longer tread that well-worn track.

It seems the first ones now claim me as theirs —

The first one to the prize — with none he shares.

But I care not what mere men lose or gain;

I have a heart of stone — I feel no pain.

— D.N. O’Brien