The One - Song 1 (Dark Waters)

Originally published January 28, 2019...

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?