Who am I?
Why am I so void of emotion?
Feel!
Feel the loneliness weighing down.
Am I to suffer from the ancient disease
That has warped the minds of those before me?
Damn!
Why am I so empty to these things?
Am I Stone?
Am I to be as hard and cold?
What am I?
Why do I not feel the biting wind?
Where?
Where are the other tormented souls?
Wait!
A great gathering has begun.
Yet ...
There has been no change.
We stand scattered along a barren ridge
That protrudes ...
From the Plain of Emptiness.
I am one
Among the multitude ...
Alone again.
Silhouetted against a black-grey sky
Looms a ghostly structure of white granite.
Yet, something it lacks ...
A stone is missing!
A thundering tempest
Bitterly rails against me!
And still I feel ...
Nothing!
WHERE THE HELL AM I?
Hammered between others atop a turret,
Like a crippled finger raking the howling blackness from the storm,
While twisted roots
Break through a dry cracking surface ...
Searching ...
Desperately Searching ...
Searching the Plain of Emptiness ...
For Nothingness.
Copyright© by Mark W. Vance 1976
(Written following the loss of 7 Rangers in a helicopter crash
during Ranger School Class 7-76)