When it was my family’s turn, we started the carving before the stone was even put in place. Two teams, three in each, under the guidance of the master mason. They were good. They were precise. The way they made it all come so clear when you looked at it. All put out on the stone like that, like someone’s talking made rock.
The rest of the lads were on hunt for most of that summer. After my fall, I got to sharpen chisels.
Otherwise, I just watched. I’d watch my family put down our lives in the stone. Making them part of the stone, and the stone a part of us. Many summers, many hunts, many feasts, so many moons. I count them on the stone with my fingertip, the way the children do. How many people will do the same? How many will come, sit here and count out their moons and years, their hunts, and feasts, and loves, and losses?
Interesting to be so timeless, yet about measuring time, and set in a clear but indeterminate time.
robin,how original.