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

 

                 THIRD MOVEMENT

                 REMEMBERING

 

SONG SIXTEEN

HUNTERS

 

III

For a few more days I ascended the water’s path

            sleeping near the winding stream when sleep would come

            but bursting now with giddy knowing that soon 

            I would break through the upper walls and see the sun

 

 

Then one moment I turned a corner

            and the burning light came flashing in

            and I ran to meet the streaming sunlight

            rushing now out, no longer in

 

 

The convergent water, rock and sky roared together

            meeting in the center of my head

            I fell dazzled to the stream bank

            I heard the scree of hawks overhead

 

 

At least I thought them hawks and so they may have been

            but whether it was effect of days of darkness

            or if they were what they seemed, I cannot say

-- but really it does not matter either way --

            for the words they spoke were not unfamiliar

            and their visage echoed others I had seen

            so they were either real   or made of dream

 

 

There were three of them circling, sounding overhead

            soaring and diving and playing with wind

            their cries sheer, ecstatic

            their loops and whirls radiant orange and red

 

 

My sunstruck eyes perceived wings ablaze

            and long red tails spiked and fire-glazed

Their flight was linked in patterns known by these three

            as they flew one-in-three in perfect synergy

 

 

With time, my eyes grew accustomed to the light

            yet the truer seeing made my understanding less

            as these three shifting shapes flew before my eyes

            and revealed to my new seeing their true and natural size

 

Their branching wings and thrashing tails

            slashed the sky in perfect joy at being who they are

Those three fly even now, clear in my mind

            clawed feet splaying out from bodies serpentine

Their words called down to me

I answered and remember still

            like a river knows its course to sea

 

 

“We are the first of three and the fourth of nine

We fly before and after time

We, the hunters, live in a place

where you, the safe, can only guess

If you come with us, know that you are not safe

Have no illusions that you can ever be

Know such things do  not matter to such as we”

 

 

With those words, my feet left earth

Soon the river flowed below

I could see where I had been

            and more clearly where I was to go

From that height and with those three

I had no doubt yet doubted everything

Fear was high but I flew with fearless certainty

 

 

Death and tears welled up from somewhere dark below

            and in a moment, I could see

                        What I knew well

                        What I knew something of

                                    and where I knew not the slightest thing

                                    and these were all the same in my remembering

 

 

Now you see, my words stumble on themselves

            as I try to say what happened there

                        how I altered course that day

 as we four flew sunshot through the air

            Instead, I should only tell the story of what I saw that day

                        that day at the end of many days

                                    I had journeyed through the maze

 

            Mostly what I saw was river emptying vastly into itself

                        feeding on its tail, and next moment alive and hungry-mouthed 

                        again rising up to feed itself in each new current and wave

            No – that does not convey the water’s force

                        so hungry for itself, and ever able to fill that need

            The river constantly arising and disappearing 

                        indifferent on its course over rock and weed

            A creature with no time winding crazy in and out the mountain gates

                        no pause and no regret, yet constant in its surge and rush

                                    not judging the fish within itself, or the likes of us

                        

 

            And so, I began to see my own life much like the river’s run

                        and all the waters I had crossed feeding my thirst for the One         

                        yet only and always emptying into myself 

like a river falls over the edge and back into itself

            I keep on learning that there is only one

                        more and less and the same as me

 

 

            As I considered these things

I happened to gaze out across fire-ringed flyers

            and to the left of one – a black shadow –familiar six-foot wings

                                    black counterpoint to the fiery ones

            Yes, there he was – Raven flying – dark spot amid the fire

            He flew sure and certain amid his own black sparks

                                    Raven laughing with no sound

 

 

            I side-slipped closer to that darker One and saw myself in Raven’s eye.

            What I saw there shocked me wide awake 

                        for though I flew, I had no feathered wings

            I remained simple flesh and bone

                        and other earthly things

                                    that could not carry me through air

                        yet in the Raven’s perfect eye, I was there

 

 

I was confused, to put it plainly

Part of me flew high and burning

            fueled by my own fire – forever unconsumed

Another part – more primal skin –

            scented the smell of Death and felt the spiraling begin

 

 

There I was suspended between red and black

and how I knew which move to make I still don’t know

            but I stretched out four ways with fingers and toes

            and laid them on feathers and scales

                        my head and left hand floating lightly on Raven’s back

I checked the view from Raven’s eye and saw myself silhouetted in fire

Then I turned to the other reddened gaze and saw myself reflected in black

            Most clearly, I was part of both

                        soaring with mythic stars yet

                        tethered to Raven bones

 

 

--Now, tears well up as I re-member myself

            bridging across those winged nations

Me, without feathers, shot out of a dream

            cutting through the lie of separation--

 

 

As soon as I saw that – the lie of the split

            a blast struck me broadside – unhinged the grace

I hurtled outward and inward – bending light straight through

            a dark crack between worlds bounded by one shared wall

            the left side dark – the other side, blue

 

 

 

 

 

The unstable web broke as I fell and I rose

            in a twisting, wrenching breathheld fall

            straight up the wind against that one shared wall

I spun out flat in a huge white wind

            where something old was put to rest

            and something new began

 

 

Where did I think I was headed

            all those years tumbling into myself?

Where did I think I was going

            all those nights of the long dark swim?

I see I was headed for emptiness all along

I was headed for the splendor of unrecognized oblivion

 

 

I see that now, but then I was only

            a streaking bolt through sulfurous air

            a crackling light ripped through the dark

                        an invading flash that exploded a hill

                                    where my lightning was grounded through a tree’s rooted core

                                    expansive, burning – more brilliant than ever before

 

 

There I was

flung down again, and as I looked back

            I saw again smoke and flame rising from my track

                                    shifting waves of light and heat that flashed and seared

                                    and left me wondering a third time at my passing there

 

Unexpected, unexplained

            I arrived again

Huge and naked, I moved closer to the damp, dark tree

I sat dazed and reeling beneath charred and smoking

            yet still living limbs, trembling shelter over me

And as I sat wobbling between shadow and flame

            uncertain if the stars were lights above me or fires below

I saw the red-winged ones           and Raven         receding fast

            flying together on two separate paths

 

I sat there not thinking for many hours

            then dropped off to what seemed a dreamless sleep

I woke because something was tickling my nose

I opened my eyes and saw a thin twig held by a dark hand

            “Greetings child!” said a small dark man