The One - Third Movement: Remembering - Song 16: Hunters - Segment II

 

            THIRD MOVEMENT

            REMEMBERING

 

SONG SIXTEEN

HUNTERS

 

II

 

So there I was

back turned away from the dark, lifeless pool

            I felt like a sun-shot bead of brilliant water

                        trembling on the tip of an icicle-star

            Clinging was tenuous and all but over

            the fall was certain, the only question – how far

 

It is important that I not get ahead of the story

            like a river racing down a gorge

It is important that the tale be told in the way it happened –

            drop by drop along the course

or else the telling makes no sense

            like tracks disappearing into the sea

 

For reasons I only found out later

I decided the proper path seemed not out

                        but in

So I let go and dropped free-falling 

I, a singledrop yet something more

I remember thinking, “I’ll just have to see where I end up.”

            dead or broken  saved or not

Where did I think I was headed?

conscious but blind in hidden waters

            It did not matter because just moving – deciding on instinct

            would get me somewhere                        

                        

            As it turned out, the fall was short and shallow

            and at the bottom, light I hadn’t seen from above

            revealed three tunnel mouths, all looking about the same

So, I chose and entered one arch of the three

of what turned out to be an elaborate labyrinth

dry then, but carved by dozens of rivulets and streams

flowing before me in those caverns

                                    before the dreaming began

All dimly lit by cracks in the mountain

             sending lucent shafts flowing within

 

Where did I think I was headed in those empty halls

            beneath the jagged peaks?

I did not know and it did not matter

All I really knew somehow for certain 

was to turn always to the left

            and always rising up        

 

A few more turns and I heard the river

            running underground

but I did not find it for quite some time

Rivulets, to be sure, dampened the labyrinthine walls

            and formed small cold pools 

            from which I drank often and in full

                        savoring the sharp metallic taste

                        bathing my tongue and throat

 

 

Yet the river remained elusive

            echoing from caverns I never reached

            laughing to itself as it played

                        along the banks of its own long dark swim

                        speaking to bats and lizards in a language known

to those who have ears to hear it 

So, I followed the winding walls

            taking pleasure in their water-shaped grace

            walking on some river’s former path

                        etching deeper into stone

Occasional flights of bats winged by

            brushing my hair and face with silk and musk

Small, silent reptile hunters skittered claws

            along the rocks seeking even smaller lizard prey

Somehow that place was more solid than any I had ever been before

            more certain and assured – completely gone

                        and intimately near

                        strangely crossed and beyond

                        and definitely here

 

 

All this is

not to say that I did not grow weary

not to say that I was unafraid

Both fear and weariness attended every touch and step

placed on unseen rock and shifting sand

            At times there were places so dark 

            that my hand before my face was hid

            Many times I brushed something living that feared my touch

 as much as I loathed touching it

 

 

            Yet it did not matter what shocks and starts

                        the rocks and water brought to me in that dark

            for I was clear that my direction lead me true

                        that winding path, dark but certain , and somehow through

            In that semi-darkness I sensed my blameless teachers

            and although their breath and words were absent

            I felt their walking lineage with me

                        All of us countless in our continuous walking

                        All of us so needing to know what and why we are

                                    that we chose the place of the long dark swim

                                    and the less-known path leading not out but in

                        All of us the seeds of stars

                        All of us so needing to arise and burn

                                    that we brought our own red fires 

to darkened caves to learn

 

 

 

            The moon shone large in those days

                        so even in the silent hours some light

                        slithered down the mountain’s cracks

                        and touched the phosphorescent labyrinth 

                                    like a lover’s fingers run through beloved’s hair

            And soon, in this grace-filled place

                        time sunk out of sight like the sun I could not see

            Only my footfalls, left and up, when I could

                        seemed to move my breath ahead while leaving

                        the little else behind

            So, in the end, only undulating moments stayed

                        arising – disappearing – gentle as small ocean waves

 

 

            Then suddenly and unexpected

                        I stepped into the river running silent

                                    in a peculiar deep and darker place

                        unseen as I slid my hands along the walls

An open space and air where stone had been

            and the river passing slow and quiet

            where it was      where it has always been

 

 

At first I was unsteady within the river’s current

            but soon I aligned with the flow’s steadiness

and its push against my legs

In this way, I knew which direction to continue

                        which was, of course, against it and always up

 

 

My body soon re-membered the rhythm of the water

            and the light increased as I made my way

            threading upstream against the insistent current

                        that flowed beyond before and after

                                    and right there in between

 

 

And that is where I first learned the river’s native tongue

            a ceaseless stream of sound explaining itself

                        through constant flowing sound

            needing no comment nor approval

            not guessing or judging about any meaning

 

I had nothing to say then to that talking river

            except to place my feet step by step

                        upon the rocks submerged in darkness

                        that smelled faintly of the sea floor raising up

                                    river rocks from below the sea

            faint reverberations echoing an older long dark swim

            and a well-worn path leading both out and in