25th
Resurrection Stone
The Eemis Stane
by Hugh MacDiarmid
“I’ the how-dumb-deid o’ the cauld hairst nicht The warl’ like an eemis stane Wags i’ the lift; An’ my eerie memories fa’ Like a yowdendrift. / Like a yowdendrift so’s I couldna read The words cut oot i’ the stane Had the fug o’ fame An’ history’s hazelraw No’ yirdit thaim.”
The world itself is Rowling’s Resurrection Stone. The snow (post-Fall) obscures our vision, and Time’s lichen hides the inscription upon the promise. Nevertheless, the seer (MacDiarmid) does not deny but that something…is there.
We fear the unknown, and yet construe it. We experience the sting of Death, and we extrapolate that Death itself is far, far worse. We ourselves supply the fear and the power that grips us. I fear Death. I cannot read the riddle. The customary “dark way” was the way of faith, to embrace the riddle-maker, regardless. The other way is to see, to stare, to love, and to finally hope, until (once more) the old faith lost returns.
Voldemort denies Death. Most people merely ignore it. This is worse, in its own way. The evil of Voldemort (life below the black line, but still religious) is both better and worse than sinking below the black line on the other, secular side. Both are materialisms, which harden all things, under the all-seeing glance of the eyes (the light-world hardened, arrogantly), into something assured and known.
