what are we (revised)?
what are we?
a girl ensconced in warmth inside a misty car gazes out at the dawn
sleepy-eyed she waits to awake as she stares out her window
streaks of condensation on the glass
early morning light
the quiet
where have we come from?
with the sleep still in her eyes she stares at passing landscape
cows on the twisting ascent upwards
watches clouds settling on mountaintops
the occasional peasant, bent and left speedily behind
where are we going?
down in the valley, a village blurred and smoky rises out of the shadows
the mist is just rising around its gabled roofs
the little grey houses and their washing
in the sky, birds
what are we to do?
taking his eyes off the road for a second, he looks at her
he wants to stroke his hand down her hair but he is unsure
this moment, this girl, is too private
in this moment she is mysterious and beyond his understanding
who are we?
a grey world of water and light enfolds her round-eyed silence
in this bubble of quiet, in her drowsy acceptance
she does not know about villages
she longs only to touch the soft noses of the cows they pass
what are you thinking?
if it were to rain it would be glorious.
June 7, 2002
cats
moonlight laying wet patches of silver on the cold kitchen floor reflects the dark shadows of the twins as they slink in through an unnoticed open window. thieves in the night cannot be quieter than these two, lapping up a careful portion of milk that is rightfully theirs and leaving as silently as they arrive. skimming cream off milk bottles at dawn, licking snow-white paws with obsessive cleanliness, the twins are racing towards a yard that is untouched by men, or dogs. sparrows are going to be watched all afternoon with unblinking intensity, staring upward at the sun, the shadows of birds and leaves dappling across their white bodyrivers, their slinky hides flowing into shade and sunspots like water sluicing silently through a channel in a dam. plugholes of time hang suspended as they play, pawing each others noses, rolling belly up and tail swinging over littered garbage in the car dump yard where even the mice have deserted these dismal surroundings for a better place to die. their fur stays white with each ordered grooming, abandoned house pets with the clean gene still strong in their wild streaks, these gambolling stalkers have grown accustomed to eating little birds and unwary mice without blinking their yellow floodlit eyes. cats are such a mystery when they refuse to do tricks to please people as dogs do. the twins are not performing cats, not large enough, not showy enough, they have been spared because of their ordinariness. cousins from the circus might claim to love the noise and colour of the show but the twins now stay away from human hands, once caressed by soft palms, smooth soothing hands, then turned astray in a pile of rubble with nothing, not even their favourite toy to keep them company they have turned to each other as wild as the day was born again. the trees watch two gambolling wild things toss each other over paws up and rolling on the ground. not even the old milkman knows where they’ve gone to, no fresh cream for the chinese whites in this rusted yard of old cars and deserted wagons, piled up junk breathing mountains of neglect into the sun that shines down on everything indiscriminate harshly this summer. alone again at last they are wilder than the wind can be, they stalk each other amongst the decaying hulks of iron and wood, nimble-paws creeping a silent track in and out of car doors hanging off their hinges, playing hide-and-seek amongst the litter of soup cans and cardboard cartons. as pet cats often have to, the twins will learn how to care for themselves entirely free of people. even children with their cruel hands holding strings filled with rattling things will not get close to them because they have no trust for human company now, need only to feed their lean bellies and sleep, warmly, in the sun.
moonlight laying wet patches of silver on the cold kitchen floor reflects the dark shadows of the twins as they slink in through an unnoticed open window. thieves in the night cannot be quieter than these two, lapping up a careful portion of milk that is rightfully theirs and leaving as silently as they arrive. skimming cream off milk bottles at dawn, licking snow-white paws with obsessive cleanliness, the twins are racing towards a yard that is untouched by men, or dogs. sparrows are going to be watched all afternoon with unblinking intensity, staring upward at the sun, the shadows of birds and leaves dappling across their white bodyrivers, their slinky hides flowing into shade and sunspots like water sluicing silently through a channel in a dam. plugholes of time hang suspended as they play, pawing each others noses, rolling belly up and tail swinging over littered garbage in the car dump yard where even the mice have deserted these dismal surroundings for a better place to die. their fur stays white with each ordered grooming, abandoned house pets with the clean gene still strong in their wild streaks, these gambolling stalkers have grown accustomed to eating little birds and unwary mice without blinking their yellow floodlit eyes. cats are such a mystery when they refuse to do tricks to please people as dogs do. the twins are not performing cats, not large enough, not showy enough, they have been spared because of their ordinariness. cousins from the circus might claim to love the noise and colour of the show but the twins now stay away from human hands, once caressed by soft palms, smooth soothing hands, then turned astray in a pile of rubble with nothing, not even their favourite toy to keep them company they have turned to each other as wild as the day was born again. the trees watch two gambolling wild things toss each other over paws up and rolling on the ground. not even the old milkman knows where they’ve gone to, no fresh cream for the chinese whites in this rusted yard of old cars and deserted wagons, piled up junk breathing mountains of neglect into the sun that shines down on everything indiscriminate harshly this summer. alone again at last they are wilder than the wind can be, they stalk each other amongst the decaying hulks of iron and wood, nimble-paws creeping a silent track in and out of car doors hanging off their hinges, playing hide-and-seek amongst the litter of soup cans and cardboard cartons. as pet cats often have to, the twins will learn how to care for themselves entirely free of people. even children with their cruel hands holding strings filled with rattling things will not get close to them because they have no trust for human company now, need only to feed their lean bellies and sleep, warmly, in the sun.
the rock
it sat lonely in an untouched spot of sun. the silent wind around it played teasingly with the grass, the flowers. but the rock knew no language of movement, it had never learnt how to dance. so it sat there in the unlit stretch of loose sand and stared at the trees and rushes. all around it pebbles littered themselves like solitary madmen. nothing interrupted their posts of immobility unless a stray child with a dog came along skipping home from school. for many millennia now life had been one ceaseless day that blended into night. mornings came and went and the evenings with their pretty purple skies and shining stars drove past leaving scarcely a ripple in the life of the rock. no pebble had ever complained at the sedentary lifestyle of a stony exterior so nobody could have ever imagined the rock’s dissatisfaction with its immovable life. but then nobody had counted on the rock falling in love with the butterfly, either.
it had been a glorious and sunny spring morning. the wind with its usual playful gambolling had rolled about with the spores of dandelions in a tumbling rolling extended race of joy. all about the trees birds had chirped and fluttered, bees lingered buzzing over the sweetsmelling grass and in the distant city chimneys with their blue columns of smoke painted slow films of grey against the bright sky. the rock settled in its customary place by the old elm tree was watching the ants move industriously across the dirt carrying little treasured tidbits of broken leaves, and seeds when suddenly, like a proclamation of a new beginning, a flood of riotous colour burst into movement. a pair of wings more silken than cobwebs and as slender as the shadow of the moon over water was pulsing a furious dance above a cloud of purple pansies. this was the rock’s first sight of the creature unimaginatively named the butterfly. the rainbow burst of colour flitted above the little nodding flowerheads, a long tongue delicately drank in their nectar, and the black scrawls of its feathery legs were soon bright with pollen, gleaming a powdery yellow in the sun. the grass seemed moulded to set itself like a painting around the delicate, exquisite creature perching lightly on the rim of a petal that spring day. and with a single look, the rock fell in love.
unaware of the burning adoration riveted literally to stone under its stencilled legs, the butterfly groomed itself on the back of the helpless rock. no greater love had ever stayed a restless heart than that sunny day in which time stood still as the rock, alive but unmoving, sat silently under the self-absorbed caress of its beloved. after an eternity of unbearable bliss, the butterfly flew off. a few hours later, as is common in the lives of such tiny creatures, the butterfly fluttered slowly to the ground, dead, the bright delirium of its wings exhausted at last. its delicate carcass was soon covered by the wind into a dust print that lingered faintly in the grass.
the rock, unbelieving, unmoving, could only stare in stunned shock as the most ethereal shape it had ever known turned as silent and immobile as stone. the bright wings were torn apart by the ravenous ants, disciplined rank commanders marching all the edible bits of the dead butterfly into the black depths of the anthill. dazed by the enormity of this shattered awakening, in all its millennia of silence the rock had never felt such heart rending pain. staring at the decapitated form of the dead angel that had fluttered among the flowers just a few hours hence, the rock vowed before the laughing wind, the swaying sea of grass, that one day it would be more than just a dumb, helpless rock. on that one day, when someone somewhere would have need of it in someway, the rock would not betray that trust with its futility.
the wind played on and the seasons changed as the cycle of the sun revolved the silent earth through its old pastures of winter and spring. the rock lay fixed as eternity in its shaded spot under the elm, the sun rose and set about its mute form, the little pebbles stayed quiet as time, the river gushed by with new trout, dead leaves, the ants marched on and on, and the days were relentless in their slow passage into night. sometimes the agony of never receiving the chance to keep its vow made the rock clench up inside its stony depths. out of its pain, a small fissure grew along the veins of its smooth heart.
the fissure lay small and quiet deep inside the heart of the rock as the wind whittled stone to sand and the river bore away the corpses of dead fish and moths into its black darkness. there had never been another butterfly after that unforgettable spring day and never did the rock wish to lay eyes on another as beautiful as its beloved. what one loves best is best kept unique from the rest of creation. and so the summer passed once more into winter and a chill set about the land. the quiet snow placed its cold blanket of whiteness on the grass and the wind, no longer playful, howled through the trees, rattling the bare branches with its moody fury. the river froze into a diamond shard of ice and nothing stirred, even the birds had flown away to kinder climes. the rock, unfeeling under the cold mantle of snow, felt the crack in its heart deepen. slowly, irrevocably, the slow ice drove in a little at a time into the tiny tear along its veins. freezing inside the fissure, the rock felt its heart being slowly split open as the pitiless snow dug in cold as an ice pick and just as sharp, forcing entry, freezing at each stop a wider crack than the one it entered through. at the last breath of winter, the rock knew it was only a matter of days before it lay broken apart completely. the fissure was now a star fracture of cracks that spiralled outward through its form, a little more ice, a little more wedging in would severe it completely into a hundred tiny pieces of senseless rubble. the rock felt anguish not so much at its faulting form but at its complete helplessness to keep its vow. resigned to its end, weary of its timeless existence, the unimaginative repetition of the stars and moon, the rock was aware that the end of this winter would uncover a little more dirt under the snow than its start had seen.
until, one day, the sun shone down weakly upon the stillborn land and melted away the frozen expanse into a cold sludge of dirt puddles melding with ground snow. the rock, awake as always, felt the last crack stretch itself slowly outward, working towards its end, working the last of the rock in its journey upward to the light. but before the crack reached its known end, it simply…………stopped. the rock was bewildered. this was a turn of events it had not foreseen. the ice withdrew, the sun shone down handsomely on the happy grass again, the land hummed with a vibrant energy as it thawed from the deep chill of winter. the rock, unseeing, disbelieving, could not do much except lie there and watch the birds and ants and trees play their ancient games all over again.
and then a little boy came walking by. he was looking for something to bring with him to his nature class, a show–and–tell presentation that all little boys take very seriously when they are at a certain age. the theme this week was butterflies. his teacher had warned him that his specimen had better be unique as his last few show–and–tell attempts had been dismally unexciting. the little boy walked slowly about the grass and flowers. he did not know what he was looking for, he had not seen a single butterfly and his empty net swung dejectedly behind him as he walked manfully on amidst the pansies and ants. at last, tired of the hot sun, he sank down in the shade of a great old elm and stared away into space. listless, he picked up a couple of pebbles and flung them half-heartedly into the river winking at him. his hand then closed around the cool smoothness of the rock, something stayed his throwing arm and he held the rock up to his eyes.
in the worn black face of the rock, there were a series of cracks that had grooved themselves into the cool stone. the shape of them mingled and rose into a delicate design that stretched across its scarred surface in the unmistakeable form of a butterfly. unbelievable luck! the natural form of such an exquisite design found carved into the heart of an old rock! whooping at his find, unmistakeably the most unusual in all the show–and–tells ever held, he danced away back home with his treasure in his hand.
as for the rock, placed as it was on the mantelpiece before his bed long after the little boy had grown up and moved away to a bigger city with absolutely no butterflies, the mirror it faced was enough. all day it gazed in wonder at the beloved form it had captured within itself, safe now forever from the merciless elements and wrought into the very heart that bore its cracks as proudly as jewels along its scarred old form.
it sat lonely in an untouched spot of sun. the silent wind around it played teasingly with the grass, the flowers. but the rock knew no language of movement, it had never learnt how to dance. so it sat there in the unlit stretch of loose sand and stared at the trees and rushes. all around it pebbles littered themselves like solitary madmen. nothing interrupted their posts of immobility unless a stray child with a dog came along skipping home from school. for many millennia now life had been one ceaseless day that blended into night. mornings came and went and the evenings with their pretty purple skies and shining stars drove past leaving scarcely a ripple in the life of the rock. no pebble had ever complained at the sedentary lifestyle of a stony exterior so nobody could have ever imagined the rock’s dissatisfaction with its immovable life. but then nobody had counted on the rock falling in love with the butterfly, either.
it had been a glorious and sunny spring morning. the wind with its usual playful gambolling had rolled about with the spores of dandelions in a tumbling rolling extended race of joy. all about the trees birds had chirped and fluttered, bees lingered buzzing over the sweetsmelling grass and in the distant city chimneys with their blue columns of smoke painted slow films of grey against the bright sky. the rock settled in its customary place by the old elm tree was watching the ants move industriously across the dirt carrying little treasured tidbits of broken leaves, and seeds when suddenly, like a proclamation of a new beginning, a flood of riotous colour burst into movement. a pair of wings more silken than cobwebs and as slender as the shadow of the moon over water was pulsing a furious dance above a cloud of purple pansies. this was the rock’s first sight of the creature unimaginatively named the butterfly. the rainbow burst of colour flitted above the little nodding flowerheads, a long tongue delicately drank in their nectar, and the black scrawls of its feathery legs were soon bright with pollen, gleaming a powdery yellow in the sun. the grass seemed moulded to set itself like a painting around the delicate, exquisite creature perching lightly on the rim of a petal that spring day. and with a single look, the rock fell in love.
unaware of the burning adoration riveted literally to stone under its stencilled legs, the butterfly groomed itself on the back of the helpless rock. no greater love had ever stayed a restless heart than that sunny day in which time stood still as the rock, alive but unmoving, sat silently under the self-absorbed caress of its beloved. after an eternity of unbearable bliss, the butterfly flew off. a few hours later, as is common in the lives of such tiny creatures, the butterfly fluttered slowly to the ground, dead, the bright delirium of its wings exhausted at last. its delicate carcass was soon covered by the wind into a dust print that lingered faintly in the grass.
the rock, unbelieving, unmoving, could only stare in stunned shock as the most ethereal shape it had ever known turned as silent and immobile as stone. the bright wings were torn apart by the ravenous ants, disciplined rank commanders marching all the edible bits of the dead butterfly into the black depths of the anthill. dazed by the enormity of this shattered awakening, in all its millennia of silence the rock had never felt such heart rending pain. staring at the decapitated form of the dead angel that had fluttered among the flowers just a few hours hence, the rock vowed before the laughing wind, the swaying sea of grass, that one day it would be more than just a dumb, helpless rock. on that one day, when someone somewhere would have need of it in someway, the rock would not betray that trust with its futility.
the wind played on and the seasons changed as the cycle of the sun revolved the silent earth through its old pastures of winter and spring. the rock lay fixed as eternity in its shaded spot under the elm, the sun rose and set about its mute form, the little pebbles stayed quiet as time, the river gushed by with new trout, dead leaves, the ants marched on and on, and the days were relentless in their slow passage into night. sometimes the agony of never receiving the chance to keep its vow made the rock clench up inside its stony depths. out of its pain, a small fissure grew along the veins of its smooth heart.
the fissure lay small and quiet deep inside the heart of the rock as the wind whittled stone to sand and the river bore away the corpses of dead fish and moths into its black darkness. there had never been another butterfly after that unforgettable spring day and never did the rock wish to lay eyes on another as beautiful as its beloved. what one loves best is best kept unique from the rest of creation. and so the summer passed once more into winter and a chill set about the land. the quiet snow placed its cold blanket of whiteness on the grass and the wind, no longer playful, howled through the trees, rattling the bare branches with its moody fury. the river froze into a diamond shard of ice and nothing stirred, even the birds had flown away to kinder climes. the rock, unfeeling under the cold mantle of snow, felt the crack in its heart deepen. slowly, irrevocably, the slow ice drove in a little at a time into the tiny tear along its veins. freezing inside the fissure, the rock felt its heart being slowly split open as the pitiless snow dug in cold as an ice pick and just as sharp, forcing entry, freezing at each stop a wider crack than the one it entered through. at the last breath of winter, the rock knew it was only a matter of days before it lay broken apart completely. the fissure was now a star fracture of cracks that spiralled outward through its form, a little more ice, a little more wedging in would severe it completely into a hundred tiny pieces of senseless rubble. the rock felt anguish not so much at its faulting form but at its complete helplessness to keep its vow. resigned to its end, weary of its timeless existence, the unimaginative repetition of the stars and moon, the rock was aware that the end of this winter would uncover a little more dirt under the snow than its start had seen.
until, one day, the sun shone down weakly upon the stillborn land and melted away the frozen expanse into a cold sludge of dirt puddles melding with ground snow. the rock, awake as always, felt the last crack stretch itself slowly outward, working towards its end, working the last of the rock in its journey upward to the light. but before the crack reached its known end, it simply…………stopped. the rock was bewildered. this was a turn of events it had not foreseen. the ice withdrew, the sun shone down handsomely on the happy grass again, the land hummed with a vibrant energy as it thawed from the deep chill of winter. the rock, unseeing, disbelieving, could not do much except lie there and watch the birds and ants and trees play their ancient games all over again.
and then a little boy came walking by. he was looking for something to bring with him to his nature class, a show–and–tell presentation that all little boys take very seriously when they are at a certain age. the theme this week was butterflies. his teacher had warned him that his specimen had better be unique as his last few show–and–tell attempts had been dismally unexciting. the little boy walked slowly about the grass and flowers. he did not know what he was looking for, he had not seen a single butterfly and his empty net swung dejectedly behind him as he walked manfully on amidst the pansies and ants. at last, tired of the hot sun, he sank down in the shade of a great old elm and stared away into space. listless, he picked up a couple of pebbles and flung them half-heartedly into the river winking at him. his hand then closed around the cool smoothness of the rock, something stayed his throwing arm and he held the rock up to his eyes.
in the worn black face of the rock, there were a series of cracks that had grooved themselves into the cool stone. the shape of them mingled and rose into a delicate design that stretched across its scarred surface in the unmistakeable form of a butterfly. unbelievable luck! the natural form of such an exquisite design found carved into the heart of an old rock! whooping at his find, unmistakeably the most unusual in all the show–and–tells ever held, he danced away back home with his treasure in his hand.
as for the rock, placed as it was on the mantelpiece before his bed long after the little boy had grown up and moved away to a bigger city with absolutely no butterflies, the mirror it faced was enough. all day it gazed in wonder at the beloved form it had captured within itself, safe now forever from the merciless elements and wrought into the very heart that bore its cracks as proudly as jewels along its scarred old form.
the raft
it is a wooden-hearted raft, and stoic as rafts come. its nerve has been forged entirely in the fires and can hold a steady gaze with the sternest steel. dressed in nothing but a thin, clingy sail, the raft possesses nothing but the memory of nails. it is looking for something to clothe its bareness with. nailed together in the choppy rocks of discontent, it lay moored in the sinking sludge at the pier of desolation when a passing northern song blew it out to sea. adrift now at last, the raft has sailed for a years journey or longer, battered by the tidal waters of the emocean as the great whales sing their sad, lonely songs in the deep. the flickering light of elysium teases it along towards the vanishing horizon that stretches its glittering length from the invisible isles of hope to the undiscovered tropic of dreams. strung along the widening gap between the horizon and the little raft are tangled, twisted lengths of rusted iron hooks, and polyethylene. a delicate garland of hurt for a voyager so rudderless and un-oared.
in the bleak vastness of the emocean, sailing is a wearying struggle against wind and water. the raft has as much chance of reaching a harbour as it has of reaching its own waterlogged, self-marked grave. but on some nights the emocean is beautiful. the deep empty universe turns slowly overhead with its pinprick stars, glowing cratered moon. the distant fins of dark whales rise and sink in water black as the night, a gleaming stretch of sea appearing and disappearing with every bobbing movement forward. rest is impossible in a place of no sleep, only the formless patterns of numbness that draw themselves through the infinite nights drifting crest by swell, calm by storm in the emocean.
the raft has learned the language of whales. often it sings to itself the slow, echoing songs, submerged by surges only to rise wet and loose in the air above the waves again. time has died down to a dim idea or memory of ancient origin, in the recesses of its reverberating heart the wood has relaxed with creaks and lapping water into a concertina of silent whale-song. the raft is dumb with refrains, the silent nights are silent no longer, the days pass by with the changing shade of the sun’s journey across the emocean.
one day the raft will wash up on a desolate sandy cove. the trailing length of polyethylene streamers and iron hooks will float like a bridal train in the water behind it. from the watermarked centre of its wooden heart a song older than time itself will creak its ancient tune to the air above it. around, soft sand, the gentle caress of waves. the horizon, still drifting, will stay fixed just beyond the blue curve of where the ocean meets the sky. moon and stars will travel over its washed clean, nailed body. elysium, unpeopled, uncrowded, will float in and out of its dreams for the sun shining down on the sea, strong and warm as a hug, will sink into its rifts a drowsiness that will unfold gently into slumber. at rest at last in the isle of no name the raft will have found a mooring, in peace, in solitude, in silence. in sleep.
it is a wooden-hearted raft, and stoic as rafts come. its nerve has been forged entirely in the fires and can hold a steady gaze with the sternest steel. dressed in nothing but a thin, clingy sail, the raft possesses nothing but the memory of nails. it is looking for something to clothe its bareness with. nailed together in the choppy rocks of discontent, it lay moored in the sinking sludge at the pier of desolation when a passing northern song blew it out to sea. adrift now at last, the raft has sailed for a years journey or longer, battered by the tidal waters of the emocean as the great whales sing their sad, lonely songs in the deep. the flickering light of elysium teases it along towards the vanishing horizon that stretches its glittering length from the invisible isles of hope to the undiscovered tropic of dreams. strung along the widening gap between the horizon and the little raft are tangled, twisted lengths of rusted iron hooks, and polyethylene. a delicate garland of hurt for a voyager so rudderless and un-oared.
in the bleak vastness of the emocean, sailing is a wearying struggle against wind and water. the raft has as much chance of reaching a harbour as it has of reaching its own waterlogged, self-marked grave. but on some nights the emocean is beautiful. the deep empty universe turns slowly overhead with its pinprick stars, glowing cratered moon. the distant fins of dark whales rise and sink in water black as the night, a gleaming stretch of sea appearing and disappearing with every bobbing movement forward. rest is impossible in a place of no sleep, only the formless patterns of numbness that draw themselves through the infinite nights drifting crest by swell, calm by storm in the emocean.
the raft has learned the language of whales. often it sings to itself the slow, echoing songs, submerged by surges only to rise wet and loose in the air above the waves again. time has died down to a dim idea or memory of ancient origin, in the recesses of its reverberating heart the wood has relaxed with creaks and lapping water into a concertina of silent whale-song. the raft is dumb with refrains, the silent nights are silent no longer, the days pass by with the changing shade of the sun’s journey across the emocean.
one day the raft will wash up on a desolate sandy cove. the trailing length of polyethylene streamers and iron hooks will float like a bridal train in the water behind it. from the watermarked centre of its wooden heart a song older than time itself will creak its ancient tune to the air above it. around, soft sand, the gentle caress of waves. the horizon, still drifting, will stay fixed just beyond the blue curve of where the ocean meets the sky. moon and stars will travel over its washed clean, nailed body. elysium, unpeopled, uncrowded, will float in and out of its dreams for the sun shining down on the sea, strong and warm as a hug, will sink into its rifts a drowsiness that will unfold gently into slumber. at rest at last in the isle of no name the raft will have found a mooring, in peace, in solitude, in silence. in sleep.
paradox
the solemn wood pipes sway lightly against each other in the trees. the sky is high with autumn colours and a soft breath of wind ruffles his hair gently into crests and troughs. he sits under the trailing roots, meditating on his sutras. a deep resonant hum is vibrating in the centre of his inhalations, exhalations. his mind is empty of all thoughts. the hum that fills all of his senses colours his sight with an ocean of hues, his hearing is unaware of anything but its bottomless low of sound. the leaves stripe bars of dappled light across his faceless features. his shut eyes weave a quietude that seems to hold all the woods in silence. only the wood pipes clicking lightly against each other emit slow hollow sounds in the feathers of the wind.
he has sat this still for a month complete, eliminating thought and desire, focusing on the strange balance of the two duelling energies within and without creation. creepers will weave their tangled lengths through his hair, about his folded knees flowers will grow and die. not even the birds will open his eyes to the world of grass and light before him, awake in the tunnel of his individual consciousness, the universe will lose meaning before the central reality.
were his teachers to be present, his unconscious deduction that left the entire universe a peripheral reality would have brought smiles to their faces. the teachers were not young, not old, just ordinary in their preoccupation with the mundane. it was the reason why he’d left the place of no pressure, he could not understand how they could let the mystery of reality pass them by. and so he’d travelled many places, sat under many trees, chased the universal hum until he could hear it in his sleep, all waking moments, in the dark, in the light, with people and alone, just the deep, endless, infinite sound of it. he grew thin as a stick, eating only when the ravaging hunger in his belly broke his concentration, often he would fall asleep in his rigid cross-legged position after successive days of meditation. he pursued the vibration with a focus that consumed his being entirely, not a thought was left in his mind at dayrise or nightset. just the absence of the pulse or the all-filling presence of it.
he grew old, never married, owned nothing, knew no one. wanderer of all places, he had seen none for they were all alike to him. he made no friends, kept no pets, fed no wild thing, not even a plant. his spirit grew narrow as a beam of light as it clung to the eternal sound it heard over any hill, across every river, in all cities, through every weather. and leaning now against the bark of the musical tree with its soft wood pipes and peaceful shade, his back was straight as it had always been and the steady sound of the motion of the universe filled his being entirely as it had for the month he’d sat there in a trance. he had not felt the wind in his hair nor heard the sad wood pipes blow their haunting tune. his last breath was a disciplined inhalation that resonated in his hearing like a flood, it merged with the single reverberation that he had heard all his life.
the solemn wood pipes sway lightly against each other in the trees. the sky is high with autumn colours and a soft breath of wind ruffles his hair gently into crests and troughs. he sits under the trailing roots, meditating on his sutras. a deep resonant hum is vibrating in the centre of his inhalations, exhalations. his mind is empty of all thoughts. the hum that fills all of his senses colours his sight with an ocean of hues, his hearing is unaware of anything but its bottomless low of sound. the leaves stripe bars of dappled light across his faceless features. his shut eyes weave a quietude that seems to hold all the woods in silence. only the wood pipes clicking lightly against each other emit slow hollow sounds in the feathers of the wind.
he has sat this still for a month complete, eliminating thought and desire, focusing on the strange balance of the two duelling energies within and without creation. creepers will weave their tangled lengths through his hair, about his folded knees flowers will grow and die. not even the birds will open his eyes to the world of grass and light before him, awake in the tunnel of his individual consciousness, the universe will lose meaning before the central reality.
were his teachers to be present, his unconscious deduction that left the entire universe a peripheral reality would have brought smiles to their faces. the teachers were not young, not old, just ordinary in their preoccupation with the mundane. it was the reason why he’d left the place of no pressure, he could not understand how they could let the mystery of reality pass them by. and so he’d travelled many places, sat under many trees, chased the universal hum until he could hear it in his sleep, all waking moments, in the dark, in the light, with people and alone, just the deep, endless, infinite sound of it. he grew thin as a stick, eating only when the ravaging hunger in his belly broke his concentration, often he would fall asleep in his rigid cross-legged position after successive days of meditation. he pursued the vibration with a focus that consumed his being entirely, not a thought was left in his mind at dayrise or nightset. just the absence of the pulse or the all-filling presence of it.
he grew old, never married, owned nothing, knew no one. wanderer of all places, he had seen none for they were all alike to him. he made no friends, kept no pets, fed no wild thing, not even a plant. his spirit grew narrow as a beam of light as it clung to the eternal sound it heard over any hill, across every river, in all cities, through every weather. and leaning now against the bark of the musical tree with its soft wood pipes and peaceful shade, his back was straight as it had always been and the steady sound of the motion of the universe filled his being entirely as it had for the month he’d sat there in a trance. he had not felt the wind in his hair nor heard the sad wood pipes blow their haunting tune. his last breath was a disciplined inhalation that resonated in his hearing like a flood, it merged with the single reverberation that he had heard all his life.
lahila and the strange bed-sit fantasy
now, you in your bed resting comfortably in a quiet countryside bed & breakfast have fallen asleep with the old book of local legends by your head. you are asleep in a restless slumber. it is not the nightlight that you have forgotten to turn off above your head that bothers you. the cry of immense black birds haunts your sleep and the wind outside your open window chills your face as it lies under the raised glass. the shadowy forms of trees play upon your features as you turn and curl under the warmth of the covers.
out from the swinging gates of the sunrise, you speed on your white horse towards the scarred towers crumbling in the dawning light. broken turrets turn blank eyes up to the silent morning for help, the plundered mouth of the portcullis gapes open in a silent scream, all parapets are scattered about the old broken windows of a once towering glory. the land about the crushed stone lies flat over half a mile in defeat.
as you race towards the old stones, you remember the days of their splendour, when the elms dared not advance beyond the banks of the distant river inward to the protected land, and great ravens black as night flew above the ramparts of the watch shrieking their news under the moon to the old magicians who watched over the land. all of this to protect the secret ensconced within the towering hold.
you know the story of the red stone, it was found by the watchers of the keep in the last hundred year autumn chill. deep in the silt of the sloping mud of the riverbank, its red glow had been unearthed and brought back to the grey keep. the seven wise ones had made a circle of magical holding for it, no one could pass within its green ring and touch the stone for seven feet outward from where it lay on its bed of exquisitely cut crystal.
you know the reason why the stone is so protected is because it is the stone, the coming of which has foreseen the end of everything known and the beginning of the last war as written in the old books. the stone has a power unique by all the reckoning of the collective knowledge the seven wise ones share. it alone can turn lonely minds astray into a corridor of death, none return when once turned into its hold, its power is as seductive as the warm glow of the sun on a winter morning.
the myth of the twenty frozen gargoyles that were placed around its red glow to guard the magic circle does not scare you. you know the silent armies of the castle that march in and out of the battlement, and you are for the side of the good. everyone knows of the great battle for truth that would have to be fought one day as warned by the elders. the coming of the stone was the beginning of the end though you know it must be guarded long past the end has come and gone, whatever remains of the old towers, and this is the task you have entrusted to yourself.
i am the warrior of the white horse, you cry as you race forward into the blood red rising sun, discarding the fading nightcloak of ignorance as you speed towards the smoking stones of the grey towers. worry drives your hastening toward the stone. the last keeper of its red power must be none but the timeless river, the flowing black water from whence it first came. it is too late to save the towers but you hope against hope that the stone at least lies protected in its powerful circle of watchdogs.
you fly along the drunken length of the drawbridge that lurches on its side into the moat, its ebony edge covered with slimy froth and mud. into the silent courtyard you gallop, steam rising from the quick breaths of your steed clears away in the silence, revealing a desolate desert of sand. not a single body or piece of chain mail lies strewn anywhere at all. it looks as if a great wind has swept clean the plains of the keep. no traces of a war are to be seen.
swinging off your horse you enter the great black mouth of the first hallway of the keep, all around you smoke and sand mingle in a haze that stretches across the great plain till the very edges of the land outside the holding. inside the cool flagging tiles of the main tower you are painted with pools of grey morning light that is streaming in from the broken roof. further into the silent hallway you come to the ruins of the great dining hall that once seated a thousand warriors at a time. you think of how the broken stone and smashed wood have set a scene of devastation that will haunt your eye of memory for many years after you no longer live in this world of sorrows greater than evils.
you come at last to the hold of the protective wraiths that guard the red stone. a faint green light shines through the open mouths of the circle of stone gargoyles that surround the stone on its blinding base of pure crystal. their eyes are cold as they watch you dismantle hauberk and helmet, sword and hood, step softly out of leggings and unwind the last shrift that clothes your form. naked as a rune you step forward to the first watching mask of horror and place your hand on its tongue. the cold light dies out of its cruel eyes and a strange glow settles upon the gargoyle’s countenance as the stoniness of its form begins to soften and melt in a mist of whispering voices that are singing a soft, old melody. the last notes of it float up into the shaft of the tower and out into the morning light.
one by one you return the gargoyles to the songs they once were and each note mingles within the thousand other mysterious ones as the morning streams into the dark hold of the tower that has seen no sunlight for as many centuries as it has stood upon the land near the river. all around you, feathers and wings soar in leisurely wreaths that rise steadily up and away, vanishing into light and air with the songs that you have freed, each tangling in birdlike simplicity with each as they fall away in the vast height of sky above. at last the stone stands uncovered on its crystal mount, it is emitting a faint green glow.
gently you reach into the bright crystal. you are overcome by a soft surge of warmth and you close your eyes for a moment at the sensation. when you open them to focus on the stone again you see it envelop your hand with warm golden fingers that trace their way up your nails, fingertips, phalanxes one by one until your palm is reached and stroked, then the base of your thumb, and in a trance you watch as with each slow caress the touched section of your hand melts away completely. you feel no pain as the soothing fingers move up your arm, leaving nothing in their wake, kneading softly up your shoulder, gliding over your collarbone to trace teasing circles over your breast. you watch in a dreamy haze as they move with a sudden swiftness in through your ribs and reach your beating heart, feel embalmed in a glow as they close over it and then you see nothing at all as everything is bleached into a blinding white light.
if you awoke from your sleep right about now, where would you find yourself? soaked in sweat and entangled in the covers of your bed as your heart beats frantically at the vision of gargoyles and golden fingers that so nearly got you? gradually as you sip a glass of comfortingly real water you might calm down at the realisation that it was only a dream of great ravens with wings covering the moon you saw, and that nothing really circled the three broken towers the ruins of which lay over a great plain beside a shining river only in your dream. and you will know you only dreamt of the red stone that none could hold and decide that you will never again eat cold liver sandwiches before falling asleep in strange places.
when morning arrived and passed and there was no sign of the guest, the landlady came up to check why the late night visitor had missed breakfast. she sank into the armchair by the door in horror at the sight of the bleached white body on the ivory sheet, its open eyes staring sightlessly upward as the sun flooded in from the window above the bed.
if you awoke from your sleep right about now, where would you find yourself?
now, you in your bed resting comfortably in a quiet countryside bed & breakfast have fallen asleep with the old book of local legends by your head. you are asleep in a restless slumber. it is not the nightlight that you have forgotten to turn off above your head that bothers you. the cry of immense black birds haunts your sleep and the wind outside your open window chills your face as it lies under the raised glass. the shadowy forms of trees play upon your features as you turn and curl under the warmth of the covers.
out from the swinging gates of the sunrise, you speed on your white horse towards the scarred towers crumbling in the dawning light. broken turrets turn blank eyes up to the silent morning for help, the plundered mouth of the portcullis gapes open in a silent scream, all parapets are scattered about the old broken windows of a once towering glory. the land about the crushed stone lies flat over half a mile in defeat.
as you race towards the old stones, you remember the days of their splendour, when the elms dared not advance beyond the banks of the distant river inward to the protected land, and great ravens black as night flew above the ramparts of the watch shrieking their news under the moon to the old magicians who watched over the land. all of this to protect the secret ensconced within the towering hold.
you know the story of the red stone, it was found by the watchers of the keep in the last hundred year autumn chill. deep in the silt of the sloping mud of the riverbank, its red glow had been unearthed and brought back to the grey keep. the seven wise ones had made a circle of magical holding for it, no one could pass within its green ring and touch the stone for seven feet outward from where it lay on its bed of exquisitely cut crystal.
you know the reason why the stone is so protected is because it is the stone, the coming of which has foreseen the end of everything known and the beginning of the last war as written in the old books. the stone has a power unique by all the reckoning of the collective knowledge the seven wise ones share. it alone can turn lonely minds astray into a corridor of death, none return when once turned into its hold, its power is as seductive as the warm glow of the sun on a winter morning.
the myth of the twenty frozen gargoyles that were placed around its red glow to guard the magic circle does not scare you. you know the silent armies of the castle that march in and out of the battlement, and you are for the side of the good. everyone knows of the great battle for truth that would have to be fought one day as warned by the elders. the coming of the stone was the beginning of the end though you know it must be guarded long past the end has come and gone, whatever remains of the old towers, and this is the task you have entrusted to yourself.
i am the warrior of the white horse, you cry as you race forward into the blood red rising sun, discarding the fading nightcloak of ignorance as you speed towards the smoking stones of the grey towers. worry drives your hastening toward the stone. the last keeper of its red power must be none but the timeless river, the flowing black water from whence it first came. it is too late to save the towers but you hope against hope that the stone at least lies protected in its powerful circle of watchdogs.
you fly along the drunken length of the drawbridge that lurches on its side into the moat, its ebony edge covered with slimy froth and mud. into the silent courtyard you gallop, steam rising from the quick breaths of your steed clears away in the silence, revealing a desolate desert of sand. not a single body or piece of chain mail lies strewn anywhere at all. it looks as if a great wind has swept clean the plains of the keep. no traces of a war are to be seen.
swinging off your horse you enter the great black mouth of the first hallway of the keep, all around you smoke and sand mingle in a haze that stretches across the great plain till the very edges of the land outside the holding. inside the cool flagging tiles of the main tower you are painted with pools of grey morning light that is streaming in from the broken roof. further into the silent hallway you come to the ruins of the great dining hall that once seated a thousand warriors at a time. you think of how the broken stone and smashed wood have set a scene of devastation that will haunt your eye of memory for many years after you no longer live in this world of sorrows greater than evils.
you come at last to the hold of the protective wraiths that guard the red stone. a faint green light shines through the open mouths of the circle of stone gargoyles that surround the stone on its blinding base of pure crystal. their eyes are cold as they watch you dismantle hauberk and helmet, sword and hood, step softly out of leggings and unwind the last shrift that clothes your form. naked as a rune you step forward to the first watching mask of horror and place your hand on its tongue. the cold light dies out of its cruel eyes and a strange glow settles upon the gargoyle’s countenance as the stoniness of its form begins to soften and melt in a mist of whispering voices that are singing a soft, old melody. the last notes of it float up into the shaft of the tower and out into the morning light.
one by one you return the gargoyles to the songs they once were and each note mingles within the thousand other mysterious ones as the morning streams into the dark hold of the tower that has seen no sunlight for as many centuries as it has stood upon the land near the river. all around you, feathers and wings soar in leisurely wreaths that rise steadily up and away, vanishing into light and air with the songs that you have freed, each tangling in birdlike simplicity with each as they fall away in the vast height of sky above. at last the stone stands uncovered on its crystal mount, it is emitting a faint green glow.
gently you reach into the bright crystal. you are overcome by a soft surge of warmth and you close your eyes for a moment at the sensation. when you open them to focus on the stone again you see it envelop your hand with warm golden fingers that trace their way up your nails, fingertips, phalanxes one by one until your palm is reached and stroked, then the base of your thumb, and in a trance you watch as with each slow caress the touched section of your hand melts away completely. you feel no pain as the soothing fingers move up your arm, leaving nothing in their wake, kneading softly up your shoulder, gliding over your collarbone to trace teasing circles over your breast. you watch in a dreamy haze as they move with a sudden swiftness in through your ribs and reach your beating heart, feel embalmed in a glow as they close over it and then you see nothing at all as everything is bleached into a blinding white light.
if you awoke from your sleep right about now, where would you find yourself? soaked in sweat and entangled in the covers of your bed as your heart beats frantically at the vision of gargoyles and golden fingers that so nearly got you? gradually as you sip a glass of comfortingly real water you might calm down at the realisation that it was only a dream of great ravens with wings covering the moon you saw, and that nothing really circled the three broken towers the ruins of which lay over a great plain beside a shining river only in your dream. and you will know you only dreamt of the red stone that none could hold and decide that you will never again eat cold liver sandwiches before falling asleep in strange places.
when morning arrived and passed and there was no sign of the guest, the landlady came up to check why the late night visitor had missed breakfast. she sank into the armchair by the door in horror at the sight of the bleached white body on the ivory sheet, its open eyes staring sightlessly upward as the sun flooded in from the window above the bed.
if you awoke from your sleep right about now, where would you find yourself?
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