Continuing...Part 6

A trail is a sort of sign
but it may be just the sign of an animal's route;
A trace is a better sort of sign
but it maybe just the sign of an abandoned route.



So when a city-seeker finds a road,
with fences and ruts and potholes.
Then he shouts in triumph,
for he knows:
he is on his way.



Now, the warrior tracked along
a genuine road,
but no more did his mind wander fancy free. No.
He looked for signs of war craft.
Pugnacious in this quest,
he felt the days behind him spin out like galaxies,
so far had he come to find this place.



Thus, when he found a man with a long rod
stooping at the ground,
seemingly taking a measure,
he presumed the man to be marking a field
for planting.

Surely this one would be a good candidate
for land-related inquiry.
So he waited for the man to pause
in his reckoning.



Then the warrior asked,
"Good man, where might I find
a military leader in this place?
I have come to make myself
an apprentice
for a time,
as I would learn the art of war."



The man unfolded,
stretching slowly,
as one does who spends much time stooping.

"Why I am a general in this land's army.
Maybe I can help you on your quest."



The warrior-to-be frowned.
"What is a general doing
duck-walking along the ground
with a measuring rod in hand?"



"It is as you surmised. I am measuring."
(This statement made with remarkable ceremony.)



"But surely this is not a job for a high-ranking general?"
said the confused warrior-to-be.
"How could your commander in chief put you to such a meaningless task?"


"Meaningless?"
(And the voice rose as only an offended general's voice could.)
"Why this is the most important task of all!
If a measure is not taken periodically,
how can we know of our city's defenses?"



The statement made a modicum of sense to the man, so he pressed on.
"What is your measure then?"



"Why I have taken no measure at all, thank goodness!
You see, I look for things that show
a marking of territorial boundaries,
however insidious,
however secretive;
and if I find none then, well,
all is as it should be."

Seeing the would-be warrior's consternation,
indeed anticipating it,
the general continued:
"As long as we are free of the urge
to possess--
only then is our all
protected."

It almost made sense to the warrior-to-be;
but in the end
he wandered on down the road
looking for someone less cryptic
and he muttered a few comparisons to don Quixote
under his breath as he went.



Soon, he said to himself,
"Well and good. I have already got out of the way
the unavoidable encounters
the hillbillies and crackpots
native to every town and its outskirts,
no matter how civilized--
these are behind me now.

I can move on to more serious purposes without
their muddying the course."
And he forgot his intention
to avoid water allusions.


He followed the road until it was flanked by trees tall and statuesque.

In one of them, a man propped himself
leaning against one branch,
pruning another.

The warrior shaded his eyes,
looked up, and called.
"Good man, might I inquire where I could find someone skilled with a spear?"

(He'd decided to take a simpler tack.)

"Ticky-tacky tic-tac-toe," spoke a voice
(seemingly dis-embodied,
now that the warrior was directly below the tree)
from the rustling branches.
It was as if he read the warrior's mind.
Derogatorily.

"Well, you needn't call me tacky,
nor the player of a child's games--"
and the warrior felt
he came across quite astute
in this comment.

"Are all the people here so cryptic?"
he thought briefly, then aloud said,
"I have serious business."

"More than you realize," the voice threw down.

"I simply would like an answer to the question.
Do you know anyone skilled with a spear?"

A moment of silence, before:
"I am."

Then the person slid to the ground
all the while hugging the tree
with a rope belt.

Indeed, he looked strong and young
and capable.

But the interview was not quite finished.

"May I see your spear?"
(The spear tells much about the man who wields it.)

And the tree-climber held out his pruning hook.
"Here she be," he said in too-jovial a voice.

The warrior-to-be sighed.

"That is not a spear."

"Ask the tree. It will tell you otherwise."



So the warrior shook his head, yet again.
"Let us try this," he followed yet another tack.
"Do you know of anyone hereabouts
who can wield a sword?"

The quintessential warrior.

"Aye, you can find him at the smithy's today
I believe he's having it sharpened."

For this last bit, the warrior to be
very nearly hugged
the landscaper,
who then added boon to benefit
by telling the warrior where the smithy lived.



Now the warrior was not unfamiliar with
the ways of the civilized.
He knew what indicators proved that
civilization was established.

Not its population, no.
And not its purposeful diversity.
Rather, the opposite.
Where the superfluous abides,
there is civilization.

So he sought the signs
of things unnecessary.
But the economy of the place
even as it grew in complexity
was sheer poetry.

This, he might have recognized as
an outermost ripple of that which he came to find.
But he'd intentioned to put such fancies out of his mind.

So while he noticed
even admired
the aptness of the place,
it was to him
but an oddity
on his way to the blacksmith's shop.



Andthere it was:
A little white outbuilding, dark inside
where a smith planted his feet firmly
near the fire
and beat a metallic clanging rhythm.
A breezeway opened across to cool him
(as much as a smithy can be cooled. )
Black he was with soot,
while pounding at the vise
a strong metal
while another man
(his strong arms crossed over his chest)
stood watching.



The warrior to be approached the watchman.

"You study him like he works on your own metal.'

The man grinned and said, "He does."

"Are you the one who wields a sword
sharpening even now under the hand of this smithy?"

Now the waiting man turned his studious eyes
on the would-be-warrior
in the dim light of the shop.

"A sword," he mused. "I suppose."
The visitor turned his gaze on the metal being beaten.

"But that doesn't look like a sword,"
he said flatly.

"What do you suspect it might be if not a sword?"
(The man sounded amused.)

"If I didn't know better, I'd say it is a plow."

"Then you don't know better, as it is a plow."

The would-be-warrior spat
disgustedly on the muddy straw.
"I look for a general,
for a spear-thrower,
and a swordsman.
I'm told I find all three.
But in truth, I find none of these.

And I came such a long way
to learn the art of war.
Who can teach me now?

I suppose you'll tell me that sword-plow
slices the earth--"

"--but only where she is willing to be infected with seed,"
chuckled the man with the crossed, sweaty arms.

And the smithy kept hammering.

"Still, you are on a quest and I can respect that.
I must stay here while the smithy finishes
renewing my plow.

But if you will remember,
there is one who can help you find
what you're not yet knowing you seek.
The Queen."

The would-be warrior remembered the house on the hill.
He shook his head again, this time mumbling
about a Mad Hatter.

The plow-man ignored the mumbles.

"Along that lane, you'll find a pavilion.
She's often there
this time of day."



The would-be-warrior squinted
from his right eye,
at the plow-man and said,
"Of course, I can walk right up
to her.
The Queen.
Me.
A stranger."

The plowman slapped him on the back.
Another one, too jovial.
"Indeed! Liberty.
It is a law of the land that comes from the top straight down."

So the traveler left the mucky little shed
and he followed a lane past a pond and up a hill
where indeed there sat
a curtained pavilion.
Even the curtains mocked security.
Thin and of billowy fabric white.
Only their length bespoke their majesty,
for they were four building-storey's tall
if they were an inch.
So, though light and frothy, still
they hung heavy and regal,
from golden hooks barely visible
from the ground.
When he looked up to assess their height,
he saw an afternoon moon imprinted on the sky.
"Why are you there?" He asked her.
"What's more, I say
why is it ever your time to be out
during the day?
Is the sun ever so ambiguous?
I think not."
So he chided that faded moon.
"Washed-out," he called it.
Then he remembered his arrangement with himself.
"No more talking to the topography,
not even the topography of the sky."
But he couldn't silence the thought
that the moon was taking liberties, too.
And he wondered that the desert would allow it.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 5)
Not until this cleansing was accomplished did he come across
people.

Oh, but this was not remarkable to him.
A city called to catalogue such secret knowledge
as the art of war and conquest, such a place
would, no doubt, keep its people safely walled,
no doubt.

Only he saw no walls.
Instead, he saw hints of farms--
fences and pasturing animals,
mounds of hay seasoning
in the autumn sun--
He lifted his eyes and scanned the periphery,
where he expected to see the rise of a wall:
tall stone,
the shield of a city,
rising even above the tops of the trees.
Somewhere would be
a thing to make him pause,
breathless at its immensity,
deep defense,
substantial
even on first sight.
But what did he see?
A small farmhouse,
and a person,
most vulnerable of all:
a small boy,
(was he playing marbles in the dirt?)
while nearby his nurse hung fresh linens
out to dry.
(With not even a fence around the yard.)
The child sang nursery rhymes to himself as he played,
a sing-song script familiar to the man at first,
but turning odd,
which would remind him that
after all,
he was in an alien place.

"Rub a dub dub,
Three men in a tub--" sang the child.
Then strangeness:
"--a psychic, a claustrophobic--" the child looked up to glimpse the man,
never finishing his song,
nor his marble throw...

"Are you content, sir, or are you grasping?" the boy asked,
asked with the voice of a man grown,
asked with a voice of the director who would interview
for a role in the troupe
of the "Washtub-Community Players."

Content?
Abstractly, the man considered
he might indeed be a fitting choice
for a role;
but before he could answer,
the washer-woman called the child.

"Go on back to the house now,"
She said as she came from behind the flapping linens,
turning full to face the man.
He noted that even her head was wrapped in white linen,
like twin peaks crowning the brow of a medieval dame;
and her apron glowed,
a white sail on a windswept lawn full of sunlight.
But,
her nose was large and her skin
unremarkable.
She was a plain but clean, starched woman.

"Beg pardon, madame,
could I trouble you to tell me
where the wall 'round yonder city might be found?"

"Wall?" she asked,
suddenly more alert to her surroundings.
"Are we being in need of the wall?
And if ye knows there be a wall, how can ye not know Who keeps it?"

"Forgive me, I'm just a traveller.
I seek a wall for a landmark,
something that I might follow to the city's gates."
She looked at him,
her eyes now fully gone
inquisitive.

"It is said only enemies see the wall first off.
(And us what is under its protection, naturally.)
So here is the way of it--
the wall is a wall when we are in need of it.
If ye be friend, ye'll never see it.
So...be glad the wall is a blind spot
and the way, an opening to ye;
for no gate is available
if the wall be up."

Such talk struck him
as superstitious rambling.
He shook his head,
simple country folk...

But still, she helped.
Pointing, she advised:
"Ye'd want to follow that trail.
So it'll take ye along the river
until it meets the oxbow lake,
go down the oxbow
to where it drys to but a meander scar,
that scar goes along
on the land where the river once coursed.
Follow the scar.
And that's as good a way as any
to reach the city.
On a high hill is the house of the woman
ye be wanting to see."


If he'd had the patience to listen to her fully,
he'd have been surprised
by the measure of her discernment--
but before she spoke her last,
he'd already launched out
intently to follow the trail along the river.
When it took a sharp turn
he saw a lake
just a bit removed.
First clear and deep,
it soon fell marshy
until at last only a dry bed led his steps.
He walked that meander,
and (as was his way)
where a trail was easily followed,
he let his thoughts wander,
handling curiously the nature of things.

For instance:
How water moved over a day,
and then how it moved
over a million days.
But knowing that his long-sought answers
loomed with imminence,
this knowing broke
the long reverie in the place
where the water thoughts
and moon thoughts resided.
Now, he shook his head
and made some sensible self-talk.
Where is that warrior-to-be?
Am I not he?
When did I forget
the reason I'm here?
(seduced by bright pretties
like sun on ripples
and sweet freshness.)
Oh, it is good.
It is all necessary.
I do not dispute these things.
But me--
I am on a mission
of urgency.
Urgent men
write little poetry.

So, no more did he ruminate
on the past of the dry bed
or its future;
and he renewed his search for signs of a city.

So with near-magical timing,
straightaway
he saw a path that crossed the meander bed,
a path wide enough for a horse cart;
a path wide enough for a chariot.
So he followed that path up and out of a dry-gulch,
where he found the beginnings of
civilization.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 4)



One last night,
the warrior laid himself down.
One last night, outside.
A man alone, and beyond
the protective womb of a city wall.
One last night, but already different--
for even this night, he bedded in a changed world:
not on a pillow of stone,
on a bed of shifting grit-
but now on a mattress of soft moss.
Not under the desolate cry of the wind,
but under the compassing coo of a dove.

And more the change that bloomed in the morning,
for when he woke,
he woke to a welcome discomfort.

A long-lost foe of pleasant wakings,
friend of forest but not of man,
this friend to moss and trees
endowing them spicy aromatic,
made the man's grimy clothes and hair
all the more odious.
A friend likewise to the woodland creatures,
who while still morning-nestled in the cobwebs,
dressed them in fanciful pearls of light
(a reasonable pay for a night's boarding)
offered in those fleeting moments when it shared the world
with the light of dawn;
this friend of forest would in turn for the man
offer him little but deep-bone stiffness
in a sticky sort of way.
But the man did not grumble,
not even a murmur in his heart.

Dew.
So long absent as to be a thing forgotten.
Now,
once remembered,
once experienced,
real and near, after months of dry awakenings:
how had he ever thought it unpleasant?

And this new man
on this new morn,
found that which could so easily vanquish
the first-light
first-waking
comforts,
instead gently held his wonder and his peace;
daintily proving things past
and long absent from his company
were still utterly reliable
in their season.


Such meditations
rose up in him that morning
to a force so mighty
as could drive a geyser,
and with a similar allure
as what manna revisited might elicit.
So the man woke not only refreshed, but strong.

In time, he rose
and took the advice of the dew:
he sought a spring where he might bathe and drink.
Soon, he found a place where waters found their own wall of awakening,
a ceiling at the end of a cavernous trip,
that opened joyously into...
air!
And the man thought it a fitting place for his own immersing.
Careful not to touch that natural spigot
he nonetheless received of its gracious flow.
He lolled in the pooling waters where he floated.
He listened.
The sound of the waves lapping over him carried
a strangely layered humming.
And he considered the water might speak to him,
so naturally he spoke in return.
"We are kindred souls this morning," he cried.
Then he laughed at the sound of his own voice,
while the sunlight skipped along the water in his hair.

"The dew sent me to you, the current sent you to me.
So much anticipation.
What awaits us in this place, do you know?"
Then he drank from the spring--
a sweet foreign purity,
for though it was likewise water that had scoured
the innards of his water jug
lo those days in the desert, still
this stuff was entirely different.
And he laughed at himself
for talking to the water,
but not for listening.
No, that was serious.

In the end, he decided that
in this place,
to believe that profound communion
could indeed transpire
between man and the cool sweat of the earth,
why it was completely natural.

And still curious, the man rose to find his city of warriors.

The Beloved and the Bride Awaken the Dawn

(part 3)



So many things change

--most of them, gradually--

so many

so gradually

who notices?

Until change is remarkable.

But only to the observant.



And so this would-be warrior

hardly noticed

when death--as scraped bones, couched within

unstable sepulchers of sand--

gave way to life

in grass and trees.

Well into the change was he

before he looked up

from his weary

trudging feet

to see--

new terrain.

Looked up, for he saw strange shadows

--limbs of trees

and flying birds,

things living.

Strange shade,

for shadows had (long days)

been merely an attachment

to the high and frozen clouds.



Suddenly, he saw:

he walked a new world.

Scrubby, true.

But no longer exposed.

That wasted bare ground,

it was covered with life,

covered with meaning.



Alert now, he heard

(at last)

the welcome

that hummed

and fumed

and wafted

in this place.



So he noted, that his first welcome came

from the trees.

The cedar washed its aroma over him--

that tree whose song acknowledged restoration:

of the leper to his health

and to his home.

The warrior-to-be was cleansed.



His second welcome came

from the trees.

The acacia,

she reached--her thorny arms

her pods

all blackish--reached to embrace him.

"I carried Noah,"

she reminded.

And the warrior-to-be was rescued.



His third welcome came

from the trees.

As groves of myrtles whispered to him,

the scent of a stallion still in their branches,

whispered reminders of days long gone

that were nonetheless called to revival-destiny:

"Remember days festival,

when our branches were(are) pruned

for the making of boothes.

Remember."

And the warrior-to-be was inspired.


His fourth welcome came

from the trees.

Richest of all, the olive dripped,

so deep was the dignity of his welcome.

"Know,"

said he,

"my seed is within me,

and fruit I yield

after my own kind."

And the warrior-to-be was sated.



So together the fir and the pine and the box tree

cheered the moving man

whose stride no longer

fell weary.

"I sing for you, with the harps that

even now

await their forming from my branches,"

cried the fir.

"I sing for you,"

rustled the wind-kissed box tree,

her branches raised in perpetual praise.

At last, the pine cried out, stately

between the other two:

"We three, note us as you pass.

For it is we that proclaim

the sanctuary.

We that make the place of the feet

of the One

glorious."

And the warrior,

in passing, thought of feet.

How different a footprint in the forest

from a footprint in the sand.

Yet how similar.



So the warior overtook those hills and mountains
(deep stone servants)

called as intervention

in a vast fierce desert.

There, he remembered a rediscovering:

desert beauty locked

in the petals
of a rose;

so likewise now he reconsidered

diverse blessings mounding and resting
in fertile lands.



And as revisiting the desert had transformed his fear,

so revisiting the fertile lands transformed his pride.

And an awesome man was he,
though not yet a warrior, still...

a man of humble courage...

a man peculiar in any world.



But before he could pause long to reflect on his own transformation,

an old man stood beneath the box tree.

And he thought it the same old man who spoke days before

at the gate,

but figured that impossible.

"Seek ye the place where the desert holds the moon?"

spoke the wizened old mouth.

And the warrior gaped

just a little.

"Did I not just pass that country?"
he asked.



The old eyes twinkled.

"The pools are but a prophecy,
sent for thee.
Dost thou not wish to find its fulfillment?

She that lives upon that hill--"

and a long shaking finger pointed.

The warrior's eyes raked along

an invisible trajectory

to find a hill before a hill,

where a large white house of cedar wood

stood nestled before

a stand of evergreens.

Gabled in goodness,

floating on a crest of cool green,

a house he had never seen,

but still somehow had always hoped

existed.

"She lives there,"

the old man simply said.

It didn't quite fit.

And yet it did.



The warrior-to-be was curious.