Many Musics, Eighth Series *part 6 of 8*

[cenacle]

Continued from here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-5-of-7*/

The Pensionne & the White Tiger

A turn & I have left my friends & the Architect,
save for the purple thread. The path ahead
falters & I find myself climbing over debris
of vines & rocks. Soon beyond the remains
of walls but the paths remain as small stones.
Strange shapes, placed at equal distances.

Then I discover who is placing them, & think me
dreaming. It is the White Tiger from the Pensionne!
My old friend. I worry this strange place will
render us strangers to each other but he turns,
sees me, & bows his head for my embrace.
For a moment gone from wonder, simple happy knowing.

They gave me work in the great garden
when I arrived there. I had brought no treasure
but had heard the Pensionne was generous
to poor travelers. My room was small
but with a tall window for sun & stars.
They let me sleep many days till I was ready.

There was work in the kitchen too,
after the dinners, the one meal of the day
not nuts & fruits. It was good work
to lose my thoughts in, the water's hot breath
calmed me, kept my focus simple to the task.
When others joined, there were songs.

Some were war songs, which I did not like,
even though extolling the King my father
as a returning hero, half a god in his armor.
While the Pensionne was far from the bloodspill,
there was a greed there for news of the battles,
a hunger for violence against the zealots who had
stolen so much, a deviling wish to burn them all.

There was more often peace in the garden.
It become my domain from before light
to afternoon. Many days I saw only the faces
of the many blooms, heard only shaking leaves
in the wind. I tempted often to dance at dawn
as I had on the Island. But my dreams rarely
followed me into waking, & my feet rarely
pressed me to dance. I did my work. I was quiet.

A plate in each hand, I noticed the White Tiger
through the kitchen window & asked the others.
They laughed, said it appeared to a few but
none too close, & anyway caused no damage.
That night I dreamed of the Architect in his Tower
& I asked him. Tapped his head, his heart,
sniffed twice, but I stomped. "No. Tell me."
"I don't have to. He will himself." "He's not
an ordinary beast?" "He's a tender. You'll be
his apprentice." "A tender?" He smiled at me,
warm & sweet, I practically swooned like a gossip,
& was gone.

I don't remember how we finally met,
or what we spoke of our many days.
I remember his beautiful white fur
with its deep black stripes. I remember
his blue eyes. Eventually I dreamed again,
& danced alone at dawn those last mornings there.

He feels real as I embrace him, the soft growl
through his perfect coat. I show him my thread
in a try to explain & he pushes close to my face,
makes me look better. His blue eyes
are now flecked with the same purple.
No longer master & pupil, but we will go together again.

******

Another Kind of Thread

We push stones into place, restoring paths
to a great length of the Tangled Gate.
Sometimes we separate & work at different paths,
& I worry he'll be gone like he never was.
But he finds me, head down for embrace,
blue eyes flicking purple, & we go on.

Eventually come again to the One Woods,
it is never far here, & walk side by side
through its great trees. My purple thread
is running low, & I have to decide:
return, tug & wait, or go on?

When I reach the end, we stop. I think
of the Architect, & my dear friends back there,
love them, adore him, sniff twice, & look
at my tender friend. Really look. His fur
a wildly bright white, his stripes a moonless
night's dark. White & black, like my threads?
He rears back & roars with a wonderful joy.

I tie the purple thread to a low tree branch.
Half bury the box of threads among the stones
at the tree's base. Tug. I hope my clue is clear to them.
My tiger bows low that I may mount him
& ride. Now we can go at his pace, which is
as swift as my white bunny's We ride.

The swifter we go, the blurrier the landscape,
& I seem to see other things. The outlines
of strange buildings, vehicles. I look up &
there are metallic crafts endlessly shifting
form. I feel purpose without words. A sense
of hurry. Stronger than ever, a wish to heal.

Then out of the One Woods, up over a hill &
below a place I should know but don't.
Several buildings close together among wide
fields, but these buildings are half fallen,
probably deserted. My friend slows his pace,
becomes almost hesitant. Sniffs twice.
Ah. I pat him twice, he kneels & dismounts me.
We are here. I am here again.

My friend does not go further, I wouldn't
let him. We embrace & I see his eyes again
are their own summery blue. I turn &
continue my path as he silently bounds away.

******

She Enters Clover-dale

Alone, I approach. No threads, no teachers.
No friends save a sense of all these
in the feel of me. Will what's to come
be new, or further pieces to join
with the others? I feel both potent
& helpless, sniff twice, & near.

The steps up to the main entrance crumble
below my feet, release to the earth as
I use them. The first room is dank & cluttered,
filled with kitchenware, weapons, books,
as though packing & flight interrupted by
death, or despair. No need to sniff here.

The next room shines with many reflections,
an unseen light shows me as a child,
a crone, a Queen, a beggar, a barebacked
dancer, a creature like my many friends, even
a great growly thing. Me a Beast?
This one I study, take its calm for my clue.

I pass on. The air becomes outdoors chilled
& I find myself in a featureless desert
slashed by sun's winter heat. I walk & walk
until I arrive at a kind of exit, a door
in sight. There is a hut before it, & within
sits a small exotic man. Old as deserts.

He comes out, makes to bow like a servant,
I shake my head, touch his small shoulder.
He smiles with several teeth but now
I feel in him the same great calm power
as my beastly image. Then he laughs, braying
with delight, & begins to gnatter like my tiny imp friend.

Not thinking, not feeling, not sniffing this time,
I gnatter in return, high & low click-clicks
& noise-noises. A kind of play, but I knew that.
A kind of song too? The more we gnatter,
the more we treble in time, see this desert
long ago as a great watery basin,
far hence filled with starcraft.

"But what am I to do?" I suddenly
say in familiar tongue. "Who am I
to heal?" The little man smiles his lovely
craggy smile, & motions me to the door
beyond him. "Just play through, my friend,"
he whispers, "& find the Carnival Room."

******

The Carnival Room

In childly dreams I visited my friends
who lived in caves & tunnels behind the wall
of my bedchamber. My first time I did not
know I was still sleeping when I heard
a singing voice. I did not wonder, as one
does not wonder in dreams, at the hole.

I quietly crept through the hole, listening.
Sometimes the singing voice was gay,
sometimes tragic, but it never ceased.
I met the white bunny first, not a word,
but instantly my friend. She showed me
how to hop the tunnels, remember by sniff.

All admired the gnattering little imp, her strange
play with objects, now this, now that,
now here, now gone! But her tricks ran
deeper, her play like a wise funny book
written on the water, finished in the air.
So many friends, & weeks of sleeping hours
to know them, each time I climbed through
the hole. The white bunny waited. We went.

I could not forget the singer though none
knew where he was. Sometimes his voice
joined our songs, our laughter, even the gnattering
imp would seem to play & teach among
his tunes. One grew used to the singing,
like an ocean's tide. One wished to gift in return.

I gathered my friends together & told
them we must make the singer a gift.
A small box, to keep his most valued possession.
With a few words I borrowed from the Architect
(he had so many!), this box would be most protected.
Every friend gave a stone, or a jewel,
a feather, a scale, a nut, a clipping of fur.

With the white bunny, the gnattering imp,
& the turtle who isn't a turtle, we traveled
for many of my dreams, listening closely,
nearing, then not so near, the singer.
I feared will would not be enough, despaired
a little. The singing grew despairing too.

I sniffed twice, & begin to laugh. The singing
joined me, as did my friends. Laughing
became a happy song, a song of finding,
a song of gifts. We hurried, we slowed.
There were no rules to finding him.
He did not know where he was.
We sang. We gnattered. We neared.

I felt us very close now, we all did,
the singing filled us whole but, still,
not quite. I sniffed twice, & took a deep leap.
"There is a door," I sang, "& now we pass
through. There is a door. And now we pass through!"
And so we arrived in the Carnival Room,
the root of the singing, its Tower, its starcraft.

One had to look around like singing,
one had to listen closely like singing,
one had to walk like singing, sniff like singing,
& always keep singing, or one found
one's self back in an ordinary tunnel
& the singing close & elsewhere like always.

So much to see, a feast of wonders:
vast, deep mirrors, with shifting tales
  writ on themâ€"doors hung high
upon walls, & other places they would
leadâ€"a painting of a great wheeled
carriage on railsâ€"& when I sang &
laughed & gnattered my best, there were
two exotic brothers, one playing a stringless
  guitar, the other dancing with a castle
upon his head, their songs joined my
  laughter, & the general gnattering, &
the singer's happy cries, many, one, none.

The singer, I learned, could only be
found in this way. not a solid form,
but by habitation. He was his many songs,
& those he shared, & this was his function,
& this was his happiness. In my many childly dreams,
I did not question this. It was answer enough.

Now, feeling like I am far from those
childly dreams, & yet, I listen for his
music, any note or quiver of it. The rooms
I pass through grow large & larger,
sometimes empty, sometimes furniture
the size of mountains. Always a half light.
No sound but my bare feet hurrying.

I try to remember the songs, even just one,
but they elude me. We sang many,
& many times over. Just one. Nothing.

Then . . . music! but not singing. Instruments.
A squeeze box, two fiddlers. I come to
a room of my own size again, dark but
noisy. I follow the music. A long tunnel.
Follow the music. Now a . . . platform
above rails, like the picture from
the Carnival Room! It is close, but
I look for the musicians.

They are indeed three. An old man
with a mess of hair, in a long grey coat,
playing the sunniest day on the many
yellowed keys of his old squeeze box.
The fiddlers tall, thin, so very thin, barefoot
like me, dressed in faded harlequin
rags, dancing & fiddling with eyes closed.
They do not notice me. I listen.

Then, I begin to dance. Not just to dance
like remembering. The years fall away
completely & I am dancing with all of me.
Dance like laughing, dance like gnattering,
dance like singing under the big moon,
under none. I dance like the tides,
like the tallest oaks, like everything
I can conjure. I forget the where
& the what of it all, forget to sniff
twice & know, I dance back my years
to far away unknown places, & dance
on to the many I will become & know
in other times. As the roar of the great
wheeled carriage escalates, I return,
as best I can. The musicians have
finished too, & gaze me quietly.
I am arrived finally at this moment
of my self, this perpetuity. I am ready.

******

The Carriage Through

There is travel here I do not understand,
brutal speed, like the hours & miles need
more than tame, they must be flayed.
This carriage speeds wildly through my mind
& for a long moment my eyes remain shut.
My thoughts turn to a memory, the Architect's son.

We were kept apart in the Tower, faces in the
stone staircase assured his distance from me.
But one time, when I reacted as a silly girl,
not an empathetic person.

I was left alone, as rare, & no stones
presumed to forbid me. I found him in
his chamber, & a thousand candles lit.
At first I could not see him. "You're beautiful,"
a voice in my ear, a hand on my cheek, a breath.

I say nothing but move away. "Are you scared?"
Still nothing. "I wish you belonged to me instead
but neither of us is of this world anyway."

Another breath, there is darkness, & I am
tumbled into an embrace. Touched high &
low, strangely, I am not scared. Just the wrong
hands. Stranger still, when he for a moment
presses my thighs open to push himself in,
there is nothing. Nothing there between his.

I am shocked. I laugh. He falls away, cries out,
is gone. I return to the Architect's office.
Say nothing. I learn how that works.

I open my eyes now & I see you for a moment.
I smile. "You're beautiful too." His look
is inscrutable, waiting. "You were giving me
a clue." He nods. "Are we from . . .
the same place?" "I think so." "Is that where
we're going?" "You are." "But you're here,
in this carriage!" His smile is sad & leaving.
"Only a message. They will think you something
else & try to claim you. You are there to heal,
solely." I nod. "I'm sorry." "I wish I had
kissed you. Just to see. Just to know."

I am alone on the carriage as it marauds
its path through hours & miles, & more.
There is nothing to see through the windows.
I wait, afraid to dream, miss everything,
whatever I am, whatever it was.

The carriage arrives in daylight & I am
awake from lost time. I hear shouts,
crowds. "She is here! She saves us!
She is here!"

There are many, they are pale, they live in
these high caverns, they dream to heal
the world. They are failing. I am the waited
legend. The first to cross the Dreaming
from elsewhere. As I am shown their
small sleep chambers each inhabits most
hours of his life, the brew each drinks
to cross the Dreaming, I wish to comfort
more than I can. Yet here & there I sniff twice,
to know better, & understand.

They think I have solved their riddle, how to heal
not hearts but history. They wait my command
to help. Crowd around me, wonder why I delay.
"There isn't time. There isn't time."

Their many faces grow rough with expectation.
"You came. You were promised." I feel
compelled toward a sleep chamber, toward
drinking their brew. At the moment I set
to fight, to run, there is a roar through
the caverns, the millennia, everywhere, always.

******

New Ways to Heal

When the purples thread tugs at my hand,
we hurry. No longer at odds, we are as one
determined to find her & help her.
We've sat together waiting & learned
one another. I have learned new tongues,
pushed myself not to think solely like a man.

They take turns with me, because I am slower
& must mind each one. The white bunny
tends my hands, shows me their pain,
spreads them out straight to my whimpers,
shows me their beauty, lets me cradle her
& feel what now flows bright & easy between us.

The nattering little imp compels me to crouch
low to her level & gnatter too, high & low,
she clicks & cackles & adjusts my mind closely,
gently, not simply to open me within
& expose my all, but to scour out the rot
from my long years among men & their wars.

The turtle not a turtle goes last & I expect another lesson
or clearing, feel humble, ready, glad,
but he falls asleep in my lap & I let myself too.
We share a dream travel together,
& he brings me to where she would visit
them, deeper reaches in it, I am walking
upright now, I am clear. I see the Red Bag
& know this is what they were all
leading me to, readying me for.

I wake & they are all in my lap, like
oldest dearest friends. We sniff once
like a hello, gnatter a joke or two between
us, & then the tug.

We go together but there is something in this
that is me leading now. We will find you,
we will protect you. When we arrive to your thread
tied to the tree, the box of threads
buried below, I know, I am clear, I sit
down with these friends of yours & mine
& do what I hadn't thought to. I braid
the remaining threads together, close
& tight. I work silently yet there is music
near, singing. My friends are near me,
they wait, they are patient to my task.

The threads now form a much longer
line & their power glows. This line
will not run out. The box I stow in my cloak
& I tie the braid's end to the thread
on the branch. We begin together to find
you, protect you, save you. I was wrong
before that you are the thread. We share
this among us, with these colored tools,
the trees, the Gate. We will do this task
together. We will learn how together.

******

[cenacle]

Continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-7-of-7*/