Stonewall

I followed it until my hunger could be ignored no longer and stopped to eat what I had brought. I followed it through the forest until the souls of my feet were sore and the soles of my shoes were worn through. I studied it as I walked, stopping to examine it and wondering, "Could I have done this?"

I continued barefoot when my shoes were gone, worn to strips and dust by sticks and other dust. Turned to rot by other rot.

I have made things. Assembled them, really (nothing can be made anymore - only assembled or rearranged). But this: this feels created. Brought into being by whomever's hands touched it before mine. Forged from something deep, raw, and unnamed. For hours, days, months (years?) those hands must have worked. Assembled, rearranged. Whose?

The wind whipped and tore my clothes to shreds. When they were gone I walked on, naked, unsatisfied.

Did its assembly change anything? Once it did not exist. Now it does. And someday it will not exist again. But here I am, following and questioning it. My feet, my hands, my eyes are changing with every step. Once they were not. Now they are. Soon they will not be again.

Could I have done this? Built this?

Did I?