The One - Third Movement: Remembering - Song 12: Memorial Day - Segment III

THIRD MOVEMENT

REMEMBERING

SONG TWELVE

MEMORIAL DAY

III

 

Today, unlike other days, the sun is for its brief hours

            uncommon warm upon the whiteness

I open my heavy coat to be near the air

            and the silent rush of biting sweetness

            arrests my passage and I stand still                   here

 

Suddenly, today, unlike all other days, I hunger for simple stillness

            to stop the motion that has driven me 

To stop right here, right now, the endless searching

            not one more step before I discover

             – now – this instant -- what is missing

 

So, I sink slowly and sit cushioned by new dry snow

            my legs and back carve a hollow

            to hold me still and keep my warmth within

            Clothing rustles and walk-paced breath 

            slow and quiet like a heated engine shutting down

 

 

 

As the sinking deepens, I find myself        oddly calm

            Silence folds around me so complete

            my ringing ears seek a speck of noise to grasp 

but find only their own thin, high-pitched hum

sounding a rhythm against my skull

 

 

            A constant resonance inside my head

                        sends out a beacon pulse

                        with no beginning          and no end

            A long void-formed sound

                        homing outward into nothing

                        seeking an unknown object of reflection

                                    that remains elusive        perhaps nonexistent

                        and so the sound can range out only to return

                                    to its place of origin in the center of my head

 

 

            Now even breath is below my hearing

                        faint thin vapor rolls out my mouth to air

                        and for a shimmering space between the instants

                        there is no boundary, there is no limit

                        no-time with nothing in it

 

 

            Sitting stillness deepens               widens

                        like the treeless tundra that swirls out from me

                        toward my field of vision’s evaporating edge

                                    a dancing horizon between ground and air

                                                 leaping without sound across the threshold

                                    while at every moment remaining near

 

 

            I watch and see why this is so

                        I begin to notice noises flickering up within

                        They scramble madly for my attention

                        bumping, jostling for time and space

                        Amazing tiny broken sound bits

                        Fall up, then fall back to muffled chatter

 

 

            Following logic, using reason

                        I see no source for these wild leapings

                        The earth and sky around me silent

                        Even heart and breath barely creeping

                        So, from where come these anxious clammerings?

 

 

 

            Listening closer

                        I see I AM the source of this noise arising

                        I AM the discordant bell clanging

                        emergent thoughts and clanking gongs of inner sound

 

            Diving deeper

                        I watch each sound wave amass strength

                        crest and crash upon the coastland of my attention

                        I see the waves are parting in two directions

                        rolling toward two separate shores

 

            Discerning more

                        I see one line of waves breaks through yesterday’s boundaries

                        while the other reckons for the coast of what is to come

                        and between them I sit and drown

                        in a cacophony of divergent sound

                                    “What I regret is . . .”

                                    “If only I had done . . .”

                                    “If it hadn’t been for . . .”

                                                                        “What will I do with . . .”

                                                                        “Who will be there when. . .”

                                                                        “Will I know how to . . .”

                        Each past-borne wave awash in pain

                        Each forward wave ferrys fear without a name

 

 

            Curious how in this sudden stillness the overlapping sounds 

seem like tender creatures scuttling on sea floor

                        frightened by a remembered predator that pursues no more

                        Poor tired and tattered fins drive one way in the surge

                        then turn and dart ahead, ready to ride the next current’s urge

 

 

            Circling frenzied to escape what is not even there

                        trapped beneath diverging waves and unaware

                        of any other way to swim than madly driven

                        by some spectre-predator’s nonexistent whim

 

 

            Then, all at once, I see it clearly

                        riding calm between the raging waves

                        silent as a snowflake falling into water

                        still as spiked ice on sea wall caves

            Between the roar and rage of crowning waves

            Between the sounds of what was and what will be

                        rests this moment just arising

 

                        silent-ending to rise up again

 

                        All perfect in noiseless passing

 

                        fearless of what may be coming; peaceful with what has been

 

 

 

            

Unwinding deeper in this moment

                        I watch what this iridescent shimmer has brought

                        that like rainbow fins can be chased but never caught

                        And I see 

the shimmer bring nothing and everything at once

                                                that it is always here and always gone

                                                like hourglass sand as it runs

 

 

 

            Riddling hard to see the meaning

                        amid the deafening silence 

                        I see a flash of movement black

                        against the white of snow and sky

 

            Sleek black wings slice silent air

            Sun gleams glossy purpling feathers

            Dark flare aloft against the white

                        Raven laughing with no sound

            In one glide he crosses

                        tundra, snowfields, mountains

                                    that it will take me days to pass

            So easy he fits his Raven skin

                        and I grounded in bone that aches

                                    to pass so gracefully as 

                                                soundless Raven laughing

 

Suddenly, the sense is rising                     

            Here he is where no bird should be

            deep in the wild and far from any tree

            And still he glides like here is all there is

            and where he passes, because he does, is his

            In every moment aloft and flying

            with no thought of then or now  

of love or dying

 

 

 

 

“Be it so!” I rise and say out loud

            It is time that I begin to retrace my way

            Re-membering what it is I’ve always known

            Re-membering the Sound, the sea, the song

                        that is always here in one-pointed grace

                        while I have wandered round it all along

 

 

Slowly I turn my back to the North

again heading South

again on course

 

 

I climb a mountain and reach its summit

Atop the peak is built a timbered tower

More than any steps on the climb before

these last wooden steps are torturous hard

But one at a time I ascend the rise

and stand at last before infinite shimmering bronze

upon which are engraved thousands of names

that, like me, have summitted, just the same.

As I read from first and come to last

my own name is appearing carved bold in bronze cast

 

The truth is confirmed

and so I turn around and descend the stair

I enter a tunnel at a turn in the peak

and make my way down by this internal route.

Before me goes an old gray man

who carries tapers, one in each hand

and as he transits the tunnel he touches the flames

to torches in walls that illumine more names

 

When I emerge on the plains below

the night is warm with Spring 

to the West, a river rolls fast and smooth

At a distance, a mourning dove’s low cry

and one star glimmers in a Raven’s eye

 

Night hours remain before the sun

But now I re-member 

                                    I am the One