Poem: The Letter by John Timothy Robinson

​The Letter

By John Timothy Robinson
QuailBellMagazine.com

​There is a rune on a rock I found just off the old road, past black sand-stones through briars and pine, beyond the single, gray locust post that stands at the top of a gully. When I found it, I told my uncle and he grinned and laughed and asked if I found anything else.  
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No buried silver dollars in a Mason jar, no Templar relics there. He said it was probably uncle Jim. He had a habit of carving things in stone when he was younger. Knowing there was nothing buried there, I scraped off the lung lichen and took a few photos. With tracing paper over its surface, I began to carefully scribble over the layer. In this charcoal frottage, a crude form of the letter “R” took shape, engraved in that arced, triangular form of rock, like a church window or a compass bowed at each side. For a moment, I looked it over, tried to see the logic of the thing, then shook my head and walked away.