Many Musics, Eighth Series *part 8 of 8*

[cenacle]

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

One, Many, None


"Neither death nor dream
are truly a remote land."


Remember some things. It's what I've returned
to the Island to do. I've lived long times
at the Pensionne, tended its garden, visited
with the White Tiger. When dreams came,
as long they hadn't, they were of the Island,
the Architect asking me to return, to find him
in the Tangled Gate. We argued.


"Why now?"
"You're needed."
"You wouldn't let me when I lived there."
"You'd been to the Gate many times, I knew this then."
"What did you know?"
"I knew then, I know now, that the deepest truth of a human heart is its yearns. When you came to me, you were forbidden the Gate in your dreams, & I only allowed you maps to study. These years had to pass, time bound you to the Gate by absence & wish."
"Now you bid my return."
"Ask the White Tiger."


I never find him but he is before me, head
low sunk for an embrace. Always the garden,
I've never seen him elsewhere, or enter it,
or exit.


He taught me in every way possible
what tenders most need to know:
kindness most binds. I often resisted
the far ends of his teachings, when kindness
seemed second to self-preservation, or revenge.
He insisted me. Pressed me again & again.


Of my dreams he would only say there are many
ways to heal, not just the tender's way.
"I have to leave, don't I?" Quiet growling
deep in his throat. "Come with me."
Silence. We would meet again in some way.
His last embrace made that clear.


My travels since have brought me to this road,
to an obscured understanding of what I am.
We approach a kind of temple now, it is
hardly dawn. A temple, a cave, I cannot
tell. I find my way forward in the crowd
is easy. A tall, feathered hierophant faces me.


There is silence. Does he expect words?
"I expect nothing. I wait your will."
"Will I find my answers in there?"
He shakes his head, as thought I ask
the color of mine own eyes.


He steps aside, & I walk toward
the door leading in. Aside the door, a basin
of water, insisting a splash, a drink.
I think of the Fountain back there, nod,
splash, drink. Enter, not knowing if I will return.


For a moment, blind blackness, nor the feel
of ground underneath. I breathe slower,
do not cry out, something tests me.


I reach within, keep my balance, sniff twice.
Images emerge in the darkness & hang
about me.


I see the books of patterns my father & I
would study, deeper ways contrive my dance
& sing of the waking dreams. What was this book?
I reach out to touch it, turn its pages,
there is something here I know,
these are gnatterings rudely writ!
I touch a page, fragile as a wisp,
& words like "there is no final thing
to know" lay upon my brow, clue & thread.


Follow the thread, half turn, & my brother,
whom I loved so closely, finding me
disconsolate that I would not see my friends
again, listening to me tell of their world,
their ways, never a denying word, just this:
"You will limp now as I sometimes do.
But not always. You will find each other."


Another half turn & my friend who claimed
my father's heart, made off. I see them
together in the chamber they alone used.
Her straddling atop him, dark hair down,
hips moving impossibly slow, head reared
back in snarl, in growl, teeth long
as she sucks him into her, deep into her,
till nothing seems to remain, leaving
the room, nude, him recomposing in the
blood & sweat falling from her as she
walks the empty corridor, him an old
splayed man & her gone completely.


I press myself harder into this darkness,
command to know, now I am small,
hardly made, singing to rags & flower vases
because they sing to me, we are alike,
I try to recall earlier but it's like
I wasn't born, never an infant. Created
like an animate statue, no couple loved me to be,
the King not my father, nor his dead first
Queen my mother. I tire. What do I do here?


There are wisps of song, of a kind with my
despairing, I reach toward them &
they settle on my outstretched finger like
a hummingbird. Singing, "many kinds of time,
several binds of time, & how it looses to air!"
I think of the Architect, & the singing molds
his face in the dark before me.


"You've come."
"You've led."


I feel soft pressings against my arms & shoulders.
My friends! I can feel soft fur, a tiny
imp's shape, a turtle not a turtle close.


"Do I finally learn what all of you are?"
"You created us. You do every time
there is a new world."
They crowd close to me, even the
Architect is not far.
"Why don't I remember?"
"You always say because failure is
an imperfect teacher, & hope
opens hands the best. We are your hints
of elsewhere, of others. All you will
allow yourself."
"Is this world failure then? Do I lead
the procession out there to a new one
again?"
"There is a choice."
"What choice?"
"Stay. Fill the hole in the heart of the world.
Bind the Gate here, to serve as foundation
to all."
"Why haven't I chosen this way before?"
"I convinced you," says the Architect,
with a deep heart's whimper. "I believed
we could make a world without flaw."


There is silence. I drift from my friends,
wander memories that seem departing.
The sweet, high music of the Traveling Troubadour.
The dark fanciful music of the One Woods
when all woke deep in the night &
cried out. My father the King on sleepless
nights, his spyglass upon the black water.
The demon tugging him back, away from
me, away from the Queen, willing
to sacrifice my brother, the snakebite
in his heart never letting him rest
until our Island home abandoned,
& all to war. Never seeing her slip
back into the sea as his boats raised
their sails.


My blue bag. The many threads. I begin
to fear. How do I know a flawless world
can't be found? I twist in, & in, & in,
feel myself starting to pull this world
closed upon itself, its possibilities, even
as glints & glarings of a new one nose me near.


I fear. Words are leaving. This is what
they do. No! (leaving) No! (leaving)
I try to cry out help me but it's just a
silent wordless grunt. No! (leaving)
Try again, the world shaking, the Beast &
its mate together, comforting at this
once again known end. Failure. Pain.


No! (leaving) No! (leaving) N-! (leav-) N-!
(gnatter) (N!) (gnatter) (N!) (gnatter gnatter!)
No! Help me, Architect! My friends! Beast!
Hero! My father the King! Help me!
White tiger! Singer! Troubadour!
Help me! (No!) (gnatter! gnatter!)
Help me, Queen! Help me, all!


A great roar, a wild pain, I feel blown
all to light, cry soundlessly, & then
all silence. Silence. Then a voice,
my own, & yet I listen:


"There is a door & now we pass through
There is a door. And now we pass through!"


The world spasms. The world shakes.
The world holds. I reach into its maw
& fill it with everything I've ever learned,
ever known. I bind myself to this world,
its flaws, its beauties. I push time
back, smooth it like a thin blanket
along a long, long bare back. It is there
for those not ready to reveal themselves
to the night & its many kinds of truths.


I push back, growing stronger, healing
all I can, there is so much, & the world
will ever root up its song in part from
its countless fractures, how they chorus.


My efforts tire me, & I feel my friends
join me, gather at my back, help me
push, this world, keep this world,
arriving, arriving now, arriving
somewhere to something, close, closer,
more, & more, & a push, & now, good,
it's . . . water. Sea water!


I am in mid-dive into the sea,
my things tied about my waist,
bidding my friend goodbye with a wave,
this time I see his face true,
it is the hero, my friend, smiling
at me as once I had at him, thank you,
I love you thank you, & goodbye.


The shore is rocky, no beach where I half-
collapse breathless. The sea lets me leave
but willing this time. I have bound myself.
I have remembered some things &
bound myself this time. I will climb
the rocks to the Dancing Grounds,
restore them for all I've learned,
dance again on the girl's legs I choose
to keep. I will let the Castle continue
to return to green, the One Woods
hungering back its possession. The Tower,
with a touch, shall return to tree,
& my Architect will have his day & night
without end.


Finally, I will come to the Tangled Gate,
that which I have loved best is here,
always has been, not left or right
by the Fountain, but through,
no way in but through, I will step
through the Fountain, its luring waters
swallowing me as I do, & come at last
to the caves & tunnels of my friends,
leaving a part of me here, my childly dreams,
they shall receive me as my beautiful
dear friends, feather, fur, gill, shell,
happy sniffs all around, but a part
of me will draw a part of them away,
away, deeper & deeper, ever toward &
arriving finally at the Red Bag. Finally
at the Red Bag.


And here we will close what has too long
been opened, the wound that was the loss
of our home, long ago, what brought us
here, the remain of us, how we built
but could not forget. I was made to help
us heal but healing is hereon, not
back there. We have done what we meant
to do.


As many, as one, as none, each of us
shuts eyes & imagines the conclusion
of the story on the other side of the
Red Bag. Closes eyes, imagines, steps through.


One by one, till all, till I am left
to finish. I watch myself dancing the
grounds my father the King built for me,
songs of my childly dreams in these caves
& tunnels, had forever, the world's best,
secret balm. If these pages are found
& read, listen for the singing from the caves
& tunnels. Join us in childly dreams.
Dance their messages through your daylight
hours. Touch & teach others how, they are real.
Open hands, touch & teach others how,
so close, smile, so close. They are real.


December 8, 2012
Cambridge, Massachusetts

[cenacle]

This is the finale of the original *Tangled Gate* series, where I thought it would end. It had been an amazing stretch of poems. Culminating a lot of ideas of mine from many years of writing and thinking. I was quite happy with it.

[cenacle]

continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series/