The One - Third Movement: Remembering - Song 15: Bones

 

THIRD MOVEMENT

REMEMBERING

 

SONG FIFTEEN

BONES

 

            A singular journey          A journey of One

            Three thousand years of sailing away

            far from the shores – sailing the waves

            writing the story on the sea’s blank face

 

 

            I re-member a place of light and heat

            where every step was lucent and free

            much like this fluid space under stars

            much like this grace-filled liquid sea

 

            A second time, I look back

                        over my shoulder to the wave-beat shore

            This time, no waving hands

                        high over feet lost in hot sands

 

 

            Again over the rim to open water

                        only light from iciclestars’ hot white glow

                        that crystal water refracts and splinters below

                                                            

 

            A long time now

                        I expect to be at sea

                        with the rock and pitch of water’s buoyancy

                                    taking me closer and farther away

                                    from the coast line of inner territory

                                    a harbor charted in shimmers

                                    land in sight

                                                then horizonless waves

 

 The last wave washes a tropic shore

A black island man sees it recede

Breathes out a following wind on the wave

Turns back up the beach to his work waiting there

He lays out two long trays under the sun

In them mixes a paste, carefully one by one,

Powders and herbs, blood-stars and stone,

            he stirs and combines making ready for bone       

I step out from whiteness and join him on shore

He motions me closer to peer in the trays

With grace and speed my skin and muscle he flays

from my body leaving only my bones

These he lays in one tray among the moist stones

He stirs and he mixes while the sea settles to calm

as I stand watch beside him looking down at my bones

After some time the paste starts to cohere

making friends with the bones in the long shallow pan

            too-soon the mix runs off in a pool like a mirror

            too-long it turns rigid cemented hard in the sand

The bone sculptor knows his potion and time

            He smiles as I watch him stir these bones that are mine

 

I wake feeling queasy

yet the ship’s wake is smooth

I still feel the smile of the bone-stirring man

and I know he is waiting past the harbor --  inland.

I saw in the dream that has entered my blood

That dreaming point is a signal fire

that stokes my long-embered desire

 

And so it comes to pass after long journeying over seas

the big island shore breaks the waves

wraps horizon in bronze hill arms

that seem to welcome me

Quickly, I leave the harbor city

            head North to more distant rugged shores

            and there I find him as in the dreaming

            but now smoking pipe and stirring sand

not bones wet and gleaming

  

 

 

            “G’day,” he says and stands to greet me

                        with a smile broad as any tiger’s yawn

            “Greetings, child!” he welcomes yet again

            “Can you speak?!” he squints an eye at me

                        in the brilliant light of the rising dawn

 

“Oh yes.  I’m sorry to stand and stare

It is wondrous strange to find you really here.”

 

            “Not strange at all,” he says to me

            “The dreamtime is the place of unity.”

 

“Then you were there in that dream,” I say

            

            “Yes, of course.  At the time that was the only way

              to see if you would make the walk to me

              and you said ‘yes,’ so here we are, as you see.”

 

“I must believe as I’m not dreaming now,” I say

 

            “Oh yes you are – just in a different way!

              The dreamtime is everything – here, there and in between

              That’s how we walk on either side – in the light or in the sleep

              These things happen, as you already know

              but with others you have not dared to speak

              Come, let us begin the walk good child.”

                        He claps his gnarly hands and stamps his naked feet

 

 

 

But still I wait -- struck by the sameness-suchness 

of the dream and this

As I wait, the gray-haired nipper grabs my head

            and bestows a sloppy kiss

And then he does a little dance of shouts and hops, saying

                        “Strength sits in you

                          The Old Ones see 

and make sacred what you do

                          Look to the stars that burn for you

                                    the ones you follow – cannot help but pursue.”

 

So with his dance and merriment

my feet, too, begin to move

and like two little ones, hand in hand

we walk into the desert, just we two

Soon I have stripped most my clothing

to near nakedness like him

but I am new here and the hot sun burns my skin

As we walk, he is all questions and curiosity

He is especially keen to know about my travels on the sea

 

                        “What is it like, this sea-walk that you make?

                          How far can you go?  How long does it take

                          to go from where you come to where you want to be

                          and will you go by sea again, and will you be taking me?”

 

 

His simple questions set me thinking hard and I see

no simple answers can come from this

In fact, the answers are not even clear to me

and if I go too deep, important points may be missed

So I decide to answer simply and only from what I know

about the traveling time, and stars, and about the sea

 

“The sea-walk has no beginning and no end

When carried on the water’s back and blown forward by the wind

there is no earth, no tree, no shore to welcome feet

just ever-changing wind and wave and the choice 

to walk wherever the sea is found

for with a ship, the sea-walk 

is much like the walk upon the ground

As for time, it seems lost out there

The wind and water have a mind that blows time and maps to smoke

Somehow it does not matter because there is always sea

and you are there as if suddenly awake

Each minute is a dawn with sun just coming up

and all that matters is walking on the sea watching each wave break

As for making the walk again, I never seem to know

when steps will lead from dry to wet

when the wind and time are right to go

when to say, ‘not yet’

And as far as your own sea-walk, it’s not for me to say

for such a walk, each of us freely chooses the water way”

 

            He is silent now, listening strong, gathering all this in

            He looks around the desert land from here to horizon rim

and after long thought, he begins to dance and hum

whirling arms around his head, feet pound

rhythms in the sand as if gathering my words within

            After much dance and tune, he squats upon the ground

            I do the same, listening close to his humming sound.

 

                        “I begin to see,” he says, smiles and claps his hands

                          The wind and distance are the same 

  The water is the desert sand

                          The desert and the sea are one and the walk a circle

                          through each and both on earth-back and on sea

                          The dreaming time holds them both, as I said, in unity!

                          The earth is water’s shadow until the sun goes round

                            then the water holds the dark while light spreads across the ground

 

He laughs now and pushes my shoulders in the sand

I push back and roll him over pinning arms and hands

At first, I’m shocked and then amused at this rowdy ancient child

and I begin to laugh out loud when I see his sandy smile

After more rolls and shouts, we stand to face the sinking sun

far off the Northeast rim, storm clouds pour out rain

and as the sunlight blazes last, a rainbow forms a grin   

as the Old One draws like arches in the sand

and says more to himself, “Just like when the dreaming began.”

 

“What is this dreaming you speak of as if it’s real?

I ask the elder whose face shimmers black-gold in final sun

and as I ask, hoots of laughter burst up from a stunted tree

chasing all semblance of seriousness away

A laughing bird. A dreaming man.  We three.

 

 

                        “That one knows the dreaming better than most

                          says the child-man grinning widely as if a friend

                          had just walked though a door

                        “But there is another in farther places that can tell you even more

                          We will make ready to seek this older one

                          who was there in the early days of the dreaming’s first pale suns

                         “There.” He points to a black mountain rising stark against the western sky

                        “There we will find One who has seen nearly all the dreaming time

 

So we make ready to walk-about black-mountain-way

by dance and song and covering our selves with dull white clay

In two days, we climb bare black boulders strewn on mountainside

I see more rainbows chipped in sandstone

and painted on the backs of stunted trees

Then the sound of a river in this desert

slashing rush through rocks and stone

and when we see its red-brown torrent

like blood from a long-open wound

 

As we begin to climb the mountain along the river’s course

storm clouds pile high and steep and lightning flashes in their dark

Rains begin to gorge the river

pushing hard against its banks

Yet we ascend the wide curves of the river’s roar

growing louder with the storm’s downpour

Now, the sound grows deafening and a wall of water 

washes down and bursts the banks

and we are swept gasping before the roiling flood

back down the mountain nearly drowned

scraping rocks and drawing blood

 

 

For a time, I think I hear my old lover calling

but no, it is only the harsh voice of water breaking against me

a ship foundered in this land-locked sea

and now the river veers sharply to the right

dragging me like a hook-mouthed fish down to darker night

the river roars into a cavern and plummets 

over thundering falls deep into a hold

inside this cave filling ever more with river water

falling down the cascades in undulating arcs

I sputter at the surface and grasp a tree root

            a swift sweet smell of cedar

as  Idraft myself aloft and suddenly 

the falling water abates

to rivulets then drips

I do not see my old companion as I stare into the pool

            slipped into dreams?  grabbed by death?  got away?

 

 

After watching long and breathing slow

I check myself for broken bones but find 

that only gashes and scrapes have claimed my blood

in the slashing fingers of the flood

 

Now I look around the cave, dim lit from mountain breaks

high above, and on the walls nearest me, more rainbows

painted arching over earth and sky

As I sit thinking about what will happen next

I decide to wait for my companion, to gather strength, to rest

And as I do, the falls grow silent

the sun shines brighter from the mountain cracks overhead

The pool settles still and glassy dark

Stone drops water into the mirrored black

As I gaze into the depths, I see colors flash and dim

At first, I think it some reflection from rainbowed walls

but see no light to send the arching hues

Still, the brilliant shimmers rise up brighter

filling more and more of the still dark pool.

Now the waters shudder as the earth rumbles deep

from somewhere and everywhere a whisper keeps

me rigid -- a voice familiar, but shrouded in mist

and although I see no lips, suddenly my mouth is kissed

 

                        “Though many, we are here as one.  

                          Once found, many searchings end.

                          I am the second of three and the fifth of nine

                          My tail lies coiled in the dreaming time”

 

This whisper is clear but quiet as breath

It feels like the beginning of life, the end of death

More colors flash like gossamer fishtails at sea

Bright yellow, red, purple, amber, and green

 

                        “When the dreaming had just begun, I was there

                          All that was, will be, and is I have seen

                          All that is bright, dim, distant and near

                          Forever as one are in the dream”

 

The slightest breath of cool air swirls up

from the rainbow pool as it shimmers and moves

in swirls and coils like paints in a cup

and now cold lips mouth my foot

piercing gently they bite down hard

slide into my flesh as if no barrier made

As I look down I see instead of blood

colors flow out bright, then into rock fade

 

The poison is warm as the colors curl up

and wash out the pain and wash in the sight

As I lift my gaze from my foot

I am eye-to-eye with the gorgeous fanged head

of a living rainbow arching over the pool

lighting up the cavern with color-dance fire

 

            “Who are you and why are we here? I ask the green-fire eyes

            “I can see that you are of the kind that will tell no lies.”

 

The head bows in greeting but eyes never leave mine

                        “It does not matter but I will tell you all the same

                          why we are here and the sound of my name

                          Call me Dree, for I am made of sound more than light

                          I and the others exist beyond time, sun and sight

                          So it is with you, and why we are here

                          is to play darkness to light, to bring the far to near”

 

I rise from the stone.  I take two steps

and a third pierces water and color at once

as rainbow coils circle my body with their colored length

yet hold me afloat with black-hulled strength

 

We play, coiling and floating, diving deep, rising up

I separate colors and mix them again

painting fingers on water like the sea and the wind

My laughter and shouts echo cave walls

as we tumble doubled-coiled hoops from the top of the falls

 

No grand searches for far destiny

No arching nights on the back of the sea

Just color and light, movement and sound

inside the rainbow below the ground

 

And then like two playmates we sleep in dream

I wrapped in coils watched by eyes of pure green

As I drift in and out of sleep

the whisper continues within prismed light

as I weave the radiant colors into black night

 

We coil together as we sleep in the dark

Our bodies of sound make no mark

Green eyes ever awake watch the striking time

drawing the colors into an arching line

across the sky and into the stars

                          playing light to dark, and near to far

 

                                    The striking time is the only thing

                                    The sound we make and the color we bring.