The One - Third Movement: Remembering - Song 14: Light Dancing - Segment I

  

  

THIRD MOVEMENT

REMEMBERING

 

SONG FOURTEEN

LIGHT DANCING

 

I

            I search the desert for many days

            alone, hungry, lost, and deeply afraid

            but only one Raven appears here and there

            -- no teacher, no coyotes, no wolves circling near

            Just one noisy Raven persists overhead

            I assume he is scouting to see when I’m dead

 

 

            Finally, my nose scents the sea

            and I run to meet its waves rolling green

            I follow the shoreline until I reach a town

            looking like something the sea tried to drown

            but no one notices or seems to care

            They seem adrift or trapped  -- slow and drugged by humid air

 

 

            No one seems hurried, hardly anyone speaks

            No one seems concerned for what I may seek

            Fruit trees and good water fill each one’s minimal need

            and I help myself and rest there for many weeks

 

            I do not speak. I do not touch these people who do not care

            They have no songs.  They do not come near.

            They simply drift from day to day as if

            waiting for Death to intervene

            while they stay detached, remain serene

 

            So different their lives from the broiling sea

            left behind in the wake of the ship that is me

            I find I need to know more of the source of their calm

            I must have this answer before I can move on

            So I begin to sit with them and to look where they gaze

            Curious, immersed in silence for endless days

            I listen       I watch        I am silent        I breathe

            but each day ends with less than I need

 

            After many such days, I approach one and catch his ear

            I begin to speak and look into eyes that are there, not here

            

            “Where do you journey?  What do you seek?”

            Only breath from the body exhaling faint and weak

 

            “I need to know how you live as you do.”

            Only faint scent of roses on a wind blowing through

 

            “I really must have the grace of reply.

              If you do not answer, I will sit here and die.”

 

            Now a slight ruffling of robes

            and glistening eyes beneath hooded lids

            Eyes opening wider begin to probe

                        me        the intruder      a nuisance to rid

 

            Now a voice rises up from a dark, still sea

            and eyes from the void look upon me

                                    “There are no answers to the questions you pose”

 

            “Then send me to your teacher or someone who knows.”

 

                                    “Your desire will be served if you go that way

                                     toward the one you seek who has no  name”

 

            And the ineffable figure signals only with eyes

            and I know not if the answer is truth or a lie

            But the robed one has now crossed over again

            attention for me wafting away on the wind

 

            I turn to the way the robed one has shown

            and my infallible compass jumps to align on its own

            As often before, I know not where I go

            only that I must move and that I must know

            If answers come, it is all to the good

            but they no longer need to be understood

            The moving, the journey is all that exists

            Answers are fleeting – sometimes found – sometimes missed

 

            So run my thoughts as my feet find the way

            walking a straight line for more than three days

            And then, near a river, silent under a tree

            I see someone sitting as if waiting for me

            much like the guide who spoke while floating in air

            but this One is grounded and makes the earth a chair

            The wind whirls up warm.  River flows over weeds

            swirling copper and white on its way to the sea

 

            A few more steps bring me close enough to see

            the familiar closed eyes not looking at me

            “I was sent by your student,” I decide to say

            “I asked for help and was directed this way.”

Suddenly, teacher’s eyes open and pierce through me

            completely engaged and as clear as the sea

            I am embarrassed now I’ve attracted their gleam

            A bumbling beginner surely I seem

 

            Yet there is no judgment nor blame in these eyes

            no impatience                no fear              no surprise

            Just a calm ocean reflecting me and the trees

            and before I can think, I fall on my knees

            “Are you the Master?  You look as though you may be.

              I seek such a one to guide and teach me.”

 

 

            The teacher breathes in as if gathering strength

            then exhales so long I am amazed at its length

            and in that one breath, a fire leaps up in me

            I hope this is the One who knows and can see

            how long and how far I have come to this place

            And suddenly salt tears stream down my face

 

 

            I feel I have come home and need wander no more

            No drifting and casting for dark elusive shores

            Here is the One who at last can show me

            the thing that I have yearned for – whatever that may be!

 

 

 

                                    “Choosing me is not the gate

                                      Our feet simply share a common path

                                      that stretches a circle beyond sight and years

                                      So it does not matter where steps are made

                                      or with whom”

 

 

            This new teacher’s words erupt in my ears

            and sink to my stomach pit – sour, hard stones

            Again it’s come to nothing.  Yet another wall.

            My wandering will continue.  Again I am alone

            So I bow my head and turn to leave

            feeling foolish to have come so far

            but the teacher reaches and holds my arm

            flooding me with guarded hope and relief

 

 

                                    “This does not mean you need walk alone

                                      or that I will not be with you

                                      But know well that who and what you seek

                                      lies not in me but in another place you already know”

 

 

 

            More mysteries and riddles, I think to myself

            but it is too soon to tell truth from deep lies

            or whether this new hope will fall or rise

            whether this one is a wall, or indeed, a gate . . .

                        and as I debate . . .

                                    the Master speaks

 

                                    “Let us begin

                                                as with many before you”

 

                                    the Master exhales deeply again

                                    and sadness sweeps a monstrous shadow wing

                                                ending the beginning

                                                            beginning the end

                                    

 

                                    “Walk with me where trees are waiting

                                                and so are we”

 

            . . . gliding forest path

                        brushing bodies of trees

                                    fingered by dappling light

                                                eased into wordless voice. . . 

 

As we walk in silence

(I  re-member the end of the journey South

            coming out of cold abandon

            a white reflection and a Raven’s eye

            winding down the mountain spine

            heading South and to the sea again

 

 

Down and deep within the rising darkness

            making sure that I would re-member

            repeating clearly at every step, “ I am the One. I am the One.”

            Burning under stars, descending with the moon

            following a river to its mouth,

deeply probing sea

            finding myself, the ocean, staring straight back

into the mystery that is me

 

 

It was then I dove into the sounding waves

I re-member thinking that I had no ship

            to begin my seafaring ways again

and even if a ship were near

            I had no will to seek the trackless sea

Why engage such a passage when I had yet to

            understand the deeper pool that is me)

 

            Now I am here with this teacher who may be the one

                                    or may be not       I cannot say

Still, it’s true, for now, all my old journeying ways 

                        are darkened

(as I feel my way from moment to moment

shimmering from now to now.

Old voices speak to me

echoed names carved in brass

            whispered secrets behind perfumed hands

I still wear the wanderer’s cloak

I remain a nomad traveling in a mapless quarter

Although I have found one that may be Master

I remain an outcast -- unclaimed spawn)

 

            . . . after many hours, I dare to say

            “You are unlike the others yet they call you teacher.

              How can this be so?”

 

                                    “I never named myself a teacher

                                      yet still they came like you do now

                                      and it is not in me to turn away

                                      If you can say why you have come

                                      perhaps answers you will see and say

 

            “Because there is more, and you may have it”

 

                                    “That seems a high risk venture

                                      sure to disappoint.

                                                Say more.”

 

( I begin to wonder, if this One

            has found the chart and sailed the unknown territory

            perhaps he is not willing to hand the map to me

            perhaps he is like the others able only to sit and be)

 

            But I decide to push on

            “You have crossed a place I’ve yet to travel

              and I seek the map, the star, the gate”

 

                                    “And what if I tell you there is no difference

                                      between where we each have been

                                      and where we each may go?”

 

            “I would need to go in any case

              to find the truth or lie of what you say.”

 

                                    “And so you will go with another

                                      if I walk away?”

 

            “Right now there is no other

              so for lack of better path,  I will stay

 

                                    “Very well, then

                                      Have me now, and see what comes”

 

            He stops asudden and turns to stare

            in me       through me      beyond somewhere

            and I am stunned and know not what to do

            standing there with ancient eyes cutting me in two

 

                                    “Continue now.  Do as you like

                                      Whatever in your mind seems right”

 

            Aspen leaves clatter-laugh overhead

            To leave seems wrong so I just choose to stay instead

            Now remembering the people of air who shaded their eyes from me

            I sink down sitting, my back against a tree

            I close my eyes as I had seen the others do

            

                                    “No!” says the Master, “Open your eyes!

                                    and watch for the One that is perfectly you.”

 

            Watch for myself?

                        seems a strange way to find what lies outside

                        in this teacher’s grasp – in this Master’s mind

            Then the teacher strikes me twice atop my head

            and in a searing flash immediately I see

                        that the way out is in – down and deep within me

 

                                    “Watch every thought like thin silver snakes

                                      coiling and circling around your breath

                                      locking and freeing the life in your chest.”

 

 

            “I see!” 

                        I say as I watch thought coils

                        each one doubled-scaled with emotion

                                    bitter-joy           sorrow-song

            layered scales of memory-feeling

                                    the dragon armor of thought

            lying close as overlapping plates

                                    I watch thinking vaporize and die

                                                twin vaporous serpents – fog entwined with sky

                                                telling only truth – speaking only lies

            a nest of hissing one-pointed stares

            continuous writhing and going nowhere

 

 

 

            “How lost I am!”

                        I sigh as I watch the tangled mesh

            “There is no way out!  Only in!”

                        and I sink down deep in the shimmering bodies

                        swallowed whole in iridescent slithering coils

                                    so deep nothing else exists except

                                                the twisting knots

                                                            sliding over themselves and back again

                        dozens of times until heavy-merged bodies

                                    cannot be separated one from the other

 and it does not matter

                        that I am losing my breath 

 

 

 

                                    “Look closer!”

                                                the teacher commands

                                    “Hold still!        Break just one free from the maze!

                                    Choose one silver thought and hold its gaze!

                                    Single it out and hunt with your mind

                                    Let the others go!  Leave them behind!”

 

 

 

 

 

            And so I choose one line, gray and pale

            and latch my gaze onto the serpentine tail 

            It is an ancient thread shaded with night

            A cruel fanged mouth that does not bite

            I am sad watching the gray old head

            pushing on        pushing through the scales of the dead

 

            “Poor old tattered used up thing”

                        I begin to weep and say

            “Bereft of feet               Bereft of wings

            to speed the journey       to find the way

            Still, it pushes steadily back to the past

                        without benefit of stars it charts the sea

                        lost and aching – dead-reckoned for me”

 

            For many weeks, I watch these silver threads

            twist and writhe in the moments they have made

            Each one ambered in the history when it first arose

            Each blind to all else and to where it might go

            But in each thought I see the yellow-eyed jewel

                        gems lovely and dark                  joyful and cruel

            cast up by beloveds and mountains of stone

            erupted from years spent wandering alone

 

            And one by one, I pick out their spark

            I bring each one home out of the dark

            until I can look down on a snake-filled sea

            strewn dazzled with gems – my body – me

 

                                                “Well done!”

                                                says the teacher

                                                “Now you are ready for more!”

            

            but I say I’m content unraveling the serpentine doors

                        untwisting and sraightening the threads of my life

                        that at last safe harbor and lights shine for me.

            I am in no mood to shove off into the merciless sea

 

                                                “It is not the sea that you next must chart

                                                  but rather a place dark in the heart

                                                  A place that you know well and again not at all

                                                  and an old lover’s face you do not yet recall.”

 

            Insistent, unmoving, fixed intent

            Nothing I say makes headway or dent

            So I raise myself from the jeweled tapestry

            and set out through the forest still hunting mastery.