All Comments on 'The Rock'

Without understanding its exact meaning, it still gives me a lot of room for forming my own thoughts and images through the substance of the words you choose to use.

It gave me the impression of a self-contained, self-recycling universe, a super nova just before its final explosion, but still it leaves to my heart hope.

The flow and the tension is developed very skilfully from stillness to full motion through the stanzas, climaxing, I think, in line 4 of stanza 3 and decreasing in the last four lines till it fades into its "cyclic journey" where "legends seem real"

5ed and thanks for sharing.

I agree with Pelegrino: a lot room to tease the imagination. At first, I began thinking of Vesuvius and even Mt. St. Helens, but then I came to the last line. I was a bit confused, but the line made me think more expansively: the Pacific Ring of Fire, prehistoric tribes deifying the power of nature. In fact, personifying the mountain in the grammatical first person was very effective and re-enforced the mythic perspective of volcanic mountains.

Maybe my journey was different than you intended, but one of the first things I look for in a poem is the the poet give me enough of a narrative for my imagination to do something meaningful with it. This did.

What is missing, here, is perhaps something to lead to your intended meaning. But then, poems can be mysterious, too. It's all good, imho. Now, what I see here is a person, a rock, "clambered over daily", "worn away by friction", whose substance is hewn away to make "statues" (or conform to roles) for other people. Once this person was fiery, this person flowed and changed. Anger was swallowed deep and now runs in hidden rivers. This person now wishes for one last "eruption".

Interesting poem. Thank you for sharing