Paul Weissfellner                                                                    about 250 words

pw7@geneseo.edu

A Large Rock

by Paul Weissfellner

I see it whenever I leave my dorm to get to the main part of campus. Glistening wetly in the rain, gray speckled with red and brown, the rock marks a crossroads, both literally and figuratively; physically, it sits at the intersection of two paths, marking where residents of Onandaga split off from students who live in other dorms. It sits, sunken into the dirt, a silent observer. Surrounded by grass, it provides a focal point towards which to direct your attention as you walk back to South Village. Some may say that it is nothing more than a physical landmark, a natural reminder of the world within which we have built our structures, both social and physical, but they are missing the bigger picture. The rock is an testament to power, but it is ambiguous in its target. How did it get to where it is now? If it came to its place naturally, it is a monument to the persistence of nature, and a constant reassertion of the natural world’s power over this who live in it. If it was moved to this resting place, the meaning is flipped; it represents the success of humankind in reshaping nature, subjugating it to our will. It’s too big for humans alone to lift, so, if it was moved to it’s current location, it had to be by a crane or bulldozer. In this scenario, its very existence reinforces the authority, continuously sought but only recently found, of humans to shape the world around us.