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28 January 2019 The One - Song 1 (Dark Waters)

In this post, we have the final segment of the first song. The One is already developing and experiencing more. Some of those experiences are frightening, some exhilarating. All of them are true and actual. In the first two segments of this first song, The One barely came in contact with others; in this last segment, others start to appear, and not always in pleasant ways. 

As the Songs of this epic poem unfold, the story becomes closer and closer to an mature way of thinking and seeing, but here, we are dealing with a fresh, new being just beginning to experience and think. Most of the images are metaphors – our old friend – but some images are statements of fact, as The One experiences reality on personal terms.

After you’ve finished this segment of Song 1, you may want to read the Song from the beginning to cement the flow of the life we are getting to know.
Your comments and questions are most welcome, as always. Please “dive in.”

                        Now locked skintight in long, dimly-lit hall
                                    palest yellow illumines smoky pall
                        I cannot be still and spend all my time
                                                skittering along the walls of my mind
                                    
                        Sounds trapped in a grave and frightening tunnel
                                    I see shadowy faces – outstretched hands
                                                to catch me if I fall but their cluster
sinks me shrieking, flailing to hard cold floor 
My useless arms now sprout fleshy feathers
but they hang too thin for flight and I can 
barely hear song-filled sky’s whispering wings
                                                            distant fins slipping through night’s fluid rings

                        Bewildered, I am some thing caught between
                                    I’m no friend to shore — no friend to sea
                                    Only sky’s starred vault casts spangled light
                                                and glorious voices resonate through me
                                    but feeble wings shroud my drooping shoulders
                                                as I doze and dream and sad-stroke the walls
                                                my true heart is not made for weights and chains
                                                but for endless sky -- and lush-liquid night
                                                            shadowed sails in weightless ebony flight
                        Even so, I wake still rooted like some 
senseless plant at the mercy of watchers’
                                                wide-peering eyes and probing hands on me 
breaking the sweet stillness of my dreaming
                                    I miss the sea                            wherever it might be
                                    I am smallest and least               alone    adrift


                        Now, behind the sound a favoring north wind
                                    promises I’ll soon be free if only 
I let them tie a silver string to me
                                    an anxious watcher at the other end
                        Far into my star-home the thread would stretch
                                    woven of meticulous snowy braid
                                    so I won’t feel it cut me like a blade
                        Dull yellow light seeps in my half-closed lids
                                    I’m resigned to die at rest not sail chained
                                    Asleep, hidden for later freedom gained
                        I’ll not leave until I’m free asudden
                                    shooting from this prison hall unfurling
                                    exquisite wings and then hurtling skyward
                                    like the ocean’s ignited cannonball

                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Some times I re-member I am alive
                                    at sea again, I am a fast-black ship 
catching a pure canvas-bellying breeze
                                    foiling the contrary traitorous winds
                                    setting sail for star-nations once again

                        I’m a black-hulled ship on the broad-backed sea
                                    shunning calm passage – tacking toward eternity
                                    crossing borderless realms with stars and sun  
                                    a single song of strong waters on a 
long downwind run

                        Most of the time I am blown far off course
                                    I can’t re-member          my       intended           route
                                                but marvelous things bubble up from dreams
                                    Yet, my song rings faint, frail, full of doubt
                                    The voice-shadow of “not-be” cold and near

                  So, silent I sink to river’s bottom
                                    send out small roots to hold against currents
                        How smoothly I lie like a drowned stone
                                    among the other ones hiding like me
                        In this way I make only faintest sound
                                    lying on river bottom, small and round
                                    while larger louder dark ships overhead
                                    cast lengthening shadows on this river bed
                        Like a great seed, I lie still in the silt
                                    sprouting roots deep and moist suckling sweet-breasted river-milk

                        I must grow strong straightaway where I am laid
                                    for causes I feel yet cannot comprehend
except that I have appeared – have been made
                        I must grow immense now that I am here
                                    by logic mysterious save freshening fear
                                                entrenched vibrations assaulting my ears
                                                            I grow for no reason
                                                            The sea only a mirror  



Explorations:
1. How and in what ways has the one developed and grown in this final part of the first song?

2. What do you make of the repetitive water images in the entire first Song?

3. Likewise, what do you think of the juxtaposition of images of containment/even prison, and their  counterparts – freedom and exploration?





Comments

  1. Reads like birth to me, perhaps expressed as multi-prism cells in an orgasmic suddenness, something cerebral seeing all directions at once, anticipating, impatient.

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    Replies
    1. Woo-Heee! Right on, my friend. So glad the central birth image came across. I was concerned it might be too abstract to interpret. Maybe it is for some, but not for you! Thanks for ferreting out the meaning. JP Savage

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  2. 1. Increased awareness through infancy and childhood.
    2. The sea of amniotic fluid, but also the realm of unbeing. Did you chose to be?
    3. The one desires to fly free but bides its time on the river bottom learning by watching the big hulls.

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