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.