The Mantle (part 2)

How does one comprehend a story that emanates from fabric moving?
Every fabric has its timbre, so I was told.
And I determined to explore the voice of my new cape.
I rose up.
I ran, and I listened.
I danced, and I listened.
I tread softly through the dewy fields at dawning, and I listened.
I clung to a sheer rock face in a strong north wind,
cast my gaze across a landscape wherein even valleys prove rugged and inhospitable,
and I listened.

When I returned, He asked me,
"What did you discover?
Was the mantle not reticent in the peaceful places?
Was it not eloquent,
and pressing loquacious in the whirlwind on the mountain?
Tell Me, what did you find?"

"I noticed the finished edges are well-spoken," I said
even as I thoughtfully rubbed the stitching.
"These hemmed seams have voices prepared to expound,
and in any condition of weather.
But this end--the one I finally laid across my shoulders;
this end is different.
It is ragged.
Whenever I turned it out to the world, it flapped silently,
no matter what the condition of air."

He squinted, "So you noticed it said nothing to justify itself, then?"

"It did not," I agreed with a short nod. "Why is that?"

He reclined into the gnarled roots of the tree then, renewing
the place where He'd spent His days of waiting
for me.
I sat, too, and received a beguiling smile.
"The ripped part is indeed the place to best begin,
after all
it is the portal that reveals a prime significance
of this mantle.
But, the voice of the jagged part told its story only once;
for its story is not one of perpetual reaction to external conditions, no
its story was told in its ripping-moment.
And you must know the rip more intimately
if you are to learn that story."
Then, He rose and for a time, left me pondering.

How was I to do this? I wondered.
Eventually, I removed the cloak;
spread it out and
slid my body into the space between its parts:
that part which is ever on display,
and the part offering only the occasional glimpse of its essence;
the part designed for show (thus the cloak's public splendor)
but likewise subject to the just-force of weathering,
and
the part ever near, ever touching
yet rarely regarded in its
fleeting exposure.
Between these I crawled, and
in this strange cocoon,
in this strange womb,
where light and sound waned vestigial
and where peace descended,
there
I began to dream.