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

THIRD MOVEMENT

REMEMBERING

 

SONG FOURTEEN

LIGHT DANCING

II

The day goes down silent

            The sun disappears in rain

            We enter deeply into shadows

            Sleepless walkers we stop only

                        to release our own water

                                    under dripping branches

                                                at the base of sodden trunks

 

 

            I hear wet grass blades bend

            and twigs break under a heavy body

            that mirrors our path and 

slithers without tiring

            winds without breathing

                        bending yellow grass

 

            These sounds    This presence

            delivers unexpected comfort

            Someone who knows me travels near

            and the long cold-throated hiss

            thrills my body like a lover’s kiss

 

 

            In seven more days, we leave the rain

            Hot sunrise haloes black hilltops in topaz and blue

            Smoke coils and rises from a dozen morning fires

            burning in the distance like a city under siege

                        a sharp acrid smell like burning hair

                        hangs close and dank in the heavy air

 

 

            Beside us, the silent traveler rears back and spits

            a spray of venomous vapors that rise up in steam

            The teacher inhales deeply and lets go a long moan

            These two salute this place that to me stays unknown

 

 

            “Where are we?”  I venture after seven silent days

            “Have we arrived?  Is it here we will stay?”

                        Stopping still, the Master turns, regards me

                        with half-closed eyes, and beside us

                                    the slithering one halts waiting

                                    as do I, for the answer, the question,

                                                the reason, some words

 

                                    Says the teacher:

                                                “Not we, but you.”

 

            The sun rises fast and washes the valley in hot light

            summoning mist to mingle with smoke

            Crows rise up, caw-caw, and drop back to the ground

            A rat scuttles off carrying a small ashen bone

            Asudden the place flames up and I see

                        exactly where this path has lead—following mastery

 

            Each embered fire has been set ablaze

            to melt the flesh off a single corpse

            The earth is littered with scavenged bones

            The stench slides down my throat

            and gritty ash on wind swirls and floats

                        some lighting on me, in my hair and eyes

            I drop to all fours and wretch out a pale yellow stream

            as nearby a raven pecks meat from a skull

 

 

 

                        “I won’t stay here!” I say and raise myself up

                        “What purpose can be in a place like this?”

                                    A few yards away I hear a long low hiss

 

                                                “You will know,” says the Master 

                                                “and here you will stay and await my return

                                                  and until that day, your old love will attend you

                                                  as you watch old life burn.”

 

            I know in my bones that something is here

            so in spite of my sickness and fear I remain

            and again watch the teacher disappear

            into sunrise, into smoke’s mirror

                        of ashen air, and beside me the rasp

                        of heavy coils sliding behind unblinking stare

 

 

            In spite of my fear. In spite of my shame

            over the days slowly I see this place is familiar, the same

            as a City I have circled before – only then I was eager

            to enter that door and to join the boneless ones inside those walls

                        to leave life behind and follow the call

                        of an icy tongue and a hungry mouth

 

 

            So I begin to walk from fire to fire

            inspecting the residual of each funeral pyre

            each in various states of demise and decay

            some melted to ash – others only beginning to gray

            I join the crows, the dogs and the rats

            assessing the roasting muscle, the bone, and the fat

 

 

            I note that in these grounds of death

            where there are no needs not even breath

            that those who live here shed no tears

            but rather peck and probe with no thought or fear

 

 

            Curious, I turn to my unblinking guard

            and ask how this can be and why until now I could not see

            that I alone felt abhorrence and fear

            when graveyards and death stood intimate and near

 

 

                                    “You make no judgments,” says the yellow-eyed one

                                    “You begin to comprehend the striking time.

                                      You watch without waiting and perform tasks as required

                                      You have become the singular body rising to strike

                                      You are perpetually arriving

                                      and also the one who always departs.”

 

 

 

            I begin to see the grace of this simplicity

            that between birth and death there stands only me

            passing life from mouth to spore

            all of that and nothing more

            This burning flesh is me – then and now

                        born pregnant with death- an end -- somewhere, somehow

 

 

 

            “It does not matter!” I shout aloud 

            and in the emptiness I feel great joy, relief

            that each death matters as much, as little, as a falling leaf

 

 

            And my old lover seems to sigh and loosen cold coils

            I begin a slow dance among the smoldering rings

            I can’t help myself.         I begin to sing!

            In this City of Silence with bodies burning quietly into sand

                        I sing because my throat is moist

                        I dance because my feet still can

 

            For some time more I make music in the burning grounds

            as more corpses are brought and laid quietly down        

            set ablaze in haste and left to burn

                        in the light they give, I turn and turn

                        feeling the bony frame knocking in me

                        relative to these others in decomposing serenity

 

            My dancing flares up a hunger in me

            I’ve not eaten for days passing under the trees

            I have no more food than my companions, the crows

            and asudden the next step is clear and I know

            that from fresh-burned flesh I can sustain my dance

                        the same as these others who forage with death

            So I pick a long bone with meat still adhered

                        and begin to eat with no distaste or fear

            If dogs, crows and rats can find sustenance here

                        then I can too – it’s that simple and clear

 

            My belly full, I lie down among bones

                        lie down with yellow-eyed consort, beloved and known

            I sleep calm through the darkness

            I wake covered with ash

                        hearing the voice of my teacher who whispers and asks

                                                “Did you sleep well?”

            I blink ashes from eyes

            The Master can see I’ve rested with ease as I rise

                        and yawn and stretch and bend at the knees

                                                “I see you have found what you didn’t know

                                                  and now look --  your old lover makes ready to go.”

 

 

 

 

            “Yes,” I nod and can’t help but say,

            “At our births, others laughed while we ourselves cried

              Now we are the laughers among those who have died

              I am boneless – an earthworm – dried up and decayed

                        a dancing skeleton, perhaps crazy, but unafraid”

 

                                                “You are ready for more,” says the teacher to me

            

            This time I am ready and follow immediately

                        as a rustle of coils fades to silence on the charnel ground

                                     – spit-venom hits fire with crackling sound

 

 

 

            We retrace our steps over parallel days

            only this time, I’m all  talk on our way

                        “Most likely I’m mad, but I really don’t care

                          yet I can’t stop thinking of those others of air

                          with their eyes closed, blind, unwilling to see

                          the incredible places you are revealing to me.

                          How can they think where they are is the place?

                          How can they hope to know until, like us, they face

                          the burning ground and lock eyes with Death’s yellow stare . . .”

 

                                                “Stop that!” warns the teacher

                                                “They have already been there.

                                                  Do not dare to think you are the first or the only one

                                                  Many others before you have faced death and done

                                                  what you have done, so drop your silly arrogance

                                                            and talk of yellow stares.

                                                  It is you who must now follow the people who sit in air.”

 

 

 

 

            I stop, chagrined and shocked at what I hear

                        “How can the next step be with the ones of air?

                          They seem so far behind and so remote

                          not of our kind – of little note

                          I can hardly believe they have seen what I’ve seen

                          I can’t see what they have that could possible mean

                                    anything to me that I don’t already know

                          How can you tell me I must go where they go!?”

 

                                                “So full of yourself you almost burst

                                                  Your pride ill becomes you and shows your worst

                                                  How a few whorish nights with Death change your mood

                                                  I’ve a mind to disappear and leave you in this wood

                                                  You think yourself heroic, unlocking secret doors

                                                  When armies of others have been there long before

                                                  you have had experience – nothing less – nothing more

 

            I am silent, hurt, brought up short

            by these cutting judgments my teacher has made

            I feel a beginner just starting again

            No credit or grace for the places I’ve been

            If I knew where to go, I would silently leave

                        but I don’t         so I follow        silent with grief

 

            My teacher leads me on the backward track

            The more I try to justify myself, the more I seem to lack

            By the time we reach the ones of air

            I am so weak I am scarcely here

            These others stay still as I take my place

                        beneath a tree

            They ignore the Master and they do not notice me

              

            This One I have followed sits as well

                        and our two-edged minds light and aware

            receive only two words from the teacher 

                        on a long out-breath—“Be here”

 

            For many weeks I sit and see

            the dancing light behind closed lids

            and when I tire, the Master shows me

            gloom and gloss and other things more deeply hid

 

            And then I begin to leave flesh and heart behind

            my body a mere mushroom sprouting from forest floor

            turned inside looking out at static time

                        ever-watchful                 ever-reaching                 for the more

 

            My hair and nails flower and flow around me

            My clothes melt to tatters meshed with skin

            rough and scaled much like the bark of tree

            I sit beneath each day and begin again

 

 

 

            And when I am sure I have left everything behind

            and no longer need to wrestle with flight and fear

            I feel someone tickling at the edges of my mind

            someone breathing long and low behind my inner ear

 

            I try to ignore this buzzing fly

            to stay within, away from it

            but I cannot ignore the long-breathed sigh

            can no longer stay, no longer sit

 

            After all these months of emptiness, there is nothing left of me

            I have become one with air – I do not feel – I do not see

            My teacher stands before me

            There is distance in his eyes

            I can smell the long-salt of the sea

 

I begin to see things as they truly are

I unlace the rigging of my imagination

            a spinnaker, catching the wind full in the belly

            a true wind on the course of my determination

I see this teacher is a gate and not the road

            one of many and not so unlike those that came before

                        each revealing another and yet another door

 

 

And so, I stand before my teacher one last time

            looking deeper to see if some unseen truth might catch my eye

            The teacher simply plucks and holds

            a blade of grass green and ripe

                        the final color as I  begin to turn and go

 to sea-void and to night

 

 

            When words  come they do not surprise

                                                “Go find another.  The One who is next

                          You are released           free in emptiness”

 

                        I barely note the words as I turn to go

                        The air bites cold.  It has begun to snow

                        Pale sun floats low its winter radiance

                        as I disappear into my own blank whiteness