liii. The Run-On of Time

There is travel here I do understand,
 brutal speed, like hours & miles need
more than tame, they muse be flayed.
 This carriage speeds wildly through my mind
& for a long moment my eyes remain shut.

What I see inly is a flat brown landscape.
Then a windowless house & its still
 vaguely clutched barn.
The house’s unseen side faces that cold
 dusk without a wall. I am standing
   on that side now, unheated by
    smudge of sun stuck on its hard,
     gray, empty sky.
Hint of snowy hills & trees in the distance?

A breath by my ear & a memory nudged,
 old one. The Architect’s son.

We were kept apart in the Tower, faces
 in the stone staircase guarded
  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 my Tower explorings.
I found him in his chamber,
 & a thousand candles lit. A music
low, like the shadows themselves made.

At first I could not him.
“You’re beautiful,” his breath by my ear,
 a hand on my cheek. Eyes more stars
  than boy’s.

I say nothing but drift away,
 wonder at the spare, low, soft
  furniture. A dim crouch of a room.

Again, the breath near.
“Are you scared?”
I wait.
“I wished you belonged to me instead,
 but neither is of this world anyway.”

Another breath, with pressing fingers
 this time, & I tumbled in remembrance,
 gently pressed & touched in a muddled
 nest of a couch. Explored. A warm
 ache in it. A lonely insist.

Touched high & low, strangely, I am
 not scared. Just the wrong hands
  to heat me.
Stranger still, when he for a moment
 presses my thighs open like to push
  himself in, but there is nothing.
   Nothing there between his.

I am shocked. It’s what they are.
 Why they do what they do. What
   little I know of coupling, them clumsy
    green things hungering toward
     the shine of our bodies.
Even my Architect. Even the King my father.
 I know little but these much.
  I laugh. His trick on me?
   But he falls away, cries out,
     is gone. I return to the
   Architect’s office. Say nothing.
  Best how this works.

Carriage shudders, whines, pushes
 me back to my mind’s weird window.
  Now an old temple out there, steeple
   fallen half in it. I walk closer.

An old gravestone, its ancient blooms
 hung on it. A patch of end summer
  dandelions. Then a set of steps
    to no building, sleeping retired
     in tall grass, top step broken
    like the last climber panicked
   to find no door, no house, nothing.
  I climb these steps, wade among
 their bed & climb up, & close my eyes
deeper & come to the house & its barn.

Broken windows, snows drifted into
 bedroom, onto the blank mattress.
  I sit. It’s soft. I push away the layer
 of snow & lay back. The ceiling’s
many stars like others I remember,

sloop me in, a thirsty dream drinks
 down its dreamer.

Stars. Your eyes. Your soft strange
 face. You on this cosmic carriage
  with me. Real enough.

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?”

His smile is sad & leaving.
“Only a message. They will think you
 something else & try to claim you.”

I nod. “I’m sorry.”
“I wish I had kissed you. Just to know.”

I am alone again on this carriage
 as it marauds its path through
  hours & miles. Nothing now to see
   through its windows, eyes closed or now.
I wait. Whatever this is, whatever I am.

I drift. Near to dream. A ragged man smiles me close. Holds my hand.

The carriage arrives to 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 this high cavern. They dream
  to heal the world. They are failing.

I am the waited legend.
The first to cross the Dreaming from ago.
As I am shown their gleaming Sleep
 Capsules each inhabits most hours of
  every day, the brew each drinks
   to navigate, I wish to comfort
  more than I can. I find myself
 sniffing twice, to know this better,
to understand.

They wonder how I solved the world’s
 greatest riddle, how to heal not history
  but hearts. Crowd around me
   to listen, know the magick unique
    thing they think I am.

Press closer. Wonder why I delay.
“There isn’t time. There isn’t time.
 You came. You were promised.”

I feel compelled toward a
 Sleep Capsule. Undecorated within,
  unlike most, save for what looks
    like a single white shell.
     There isn’t time.

At the moment I set to fight,
 to run, there is roar through
  the cavern, the millennia, everywhere, always.

* * * * * *

liv. Tendering

We sit together waiting, purple
 thread slack in my hand.
And we learn one another better.
I push myself not to think, not to feel,
 not to be, solely like a man.

She left me with them, like a sniff
 of her approval, me to them, & so
  they resume their studies of what
 I am, this time more tender
  taking turns because I am slower,
   can only reck one by one.

The White Bunny hops into my lap,
  &, like before, her calm yet mesmering
    scrutiny of me. She tends my hands,
  shows me their pain, shows me the history
 of my pain in my fingers, spreads them
out straight, to my whimpers.

Shows me their beauty, a thing I could
 not have imagined. And now I do
  & am changed. It hurts. I whimper.
 But she lets me cradle her, & felt
what flows bright & tender between us.
 The touch. The hmmm.

I groan. I rest.

Then the gnattering little imp compels
 me to crouch low, impossibly low,
  to her level, & gnatter too.
 She click-clicks & noise-noises, cackles
merrily & enters my mind again. She now
 begins to do her tendering adjustments.

Closely, gently, not just to open me
 wide within, expose my all, but to
  scour out the rot from my long years
 among men, their ways & wars.
She is old as this world, or nearly so,
 & finds it funny still, dark & tragic & funny.

The turtle not a turtle goes last, &
 I expect another lesson, a hard or soft
  tendering. I’m humble, I’m ready,
   I’m glad, but he falls asleep in my lap,
    & I let myself too.

We cluster in dream together, & he brings
  me to where she would visit them,
   deep in this Tangled Gate, in a
  cavern below it. I am walking upright
 now, next to this friend. I am clear.
I am tendered. I see the Red Bag, &
 understand this is what they were
  tendering me for, leading me to,
   reminding me of.

This is who I am. No more denial.
This is what I must do. I nod.

I wake & they are all in my lap,
 like my oldest, dearest friends,
  never before had. We sniff once hello,
 gnatter a joke or two between us,
  & then the tug of the thread
   in my hand.

We go together now, something in
 this that is me leading.
We will find you.
We will protect you.

When we arrive to the thread-tied tree,
 box of colored threads buried below, I know,
  I am clear, I sit down with
 these friends of yours & now mine,
& do what I hadn’t thought to do.
 I braid the remaining colored threads
  together, close & tight, all of us
   clustered near & hmmming as I braid.

The braided thread is much longer now,
 glows powerfully like a rainbow
  end to end arcing the sky.
 This line will not run out, I know
that now. The box I stow in my cloat,
 & I retie this braided thread to
   the tree’s branch.

We will find you.
We will protect you.

I was wrong before, that you were
 the thread out of time. We share
  this among us, with these colored
   tools, the trees, these Creatures,
  the Gate. We will do this
 task together. Save this world
together. Learn how together.

* * * * * *

lv. Flow State

A roar through the millennia,
 everywhere, always. From on
to many to none. A roar everywhere
 made of all breaths to be, always
there, inside the skin of moments.
 Bodies falling, trees, lands, others
rising, pushing, replacing. Everywhere,
 always. A roar & its kind of questions
some men climb high to ask. Why desire?
 Why anything at all?

What you ask now, what they had
 asked long before you. Following your
father the King across the years & miles
 to find this Island, this Tangled Gate.
To find me with their even harder
 question: how do we save the world?

I know you are coming by when you
 enter the Gate, by the throbbing tremor
in things what men are. You followed
 no sure course to me in this Cave,
unlike how your King travelled me in
 his dream. I know you have roamed
this Island fruitless days, lost in One
 Woods, forgetting yourselves, softening
to more like speechless brutes.

I know it was the Creatures who guided
 you, by branch’s snap, & softest hmmming,
to veer you nearer, ever nearer to
 this Gate, to me. When you enter,
you are weakened, no longer warriors,
 like spectres with nowhere else to go
but on. You drink at the Fountain
 & its kinetic waters fresh your limbs
but ungate your minds. You wander in
 wonder the vined & stoned paths.

I let you near. Each turn you
 make, I let you closer. I let
your woodsman notice patterns
 in the leaves, your painter feel
a rhythm to cohere your steps.
 Allow your Emandian to hear my
barest hmmm & join, & urge, & near.

And you find my Cave with strength
 in your hearts again, humbled by
all you do not know. I let you enter
 one at a time & collect in silence,
seeing how the dark entrance told
 nothing within, no darkness at all.

You are now down endless deep in the
 Wide Wide Sea. This Cave exists now
& long ago together. Turn, each of you,
 behold the frozen waterfalls their
beautiful colors, study them close,
 closer still, study their pictures
of long ago, before one became many,
 this world undivided by waking &
dream, perpetual flow state.

Close your eyes & flow when all
 flows, hmmm what all hmmms,
touch where everywhere touches,
 share every color, sniff & taste
this perpetual food, peace beyond
 peace, no first or final thing to know,

until one day a splash wakes many
 from one, waking from dream,
land from water, & choices your
 kind knew firstly, & shaped this world by.

Life is more suffering for some than
 others, so climb upon those greater
sufferers like stones up a long hill—
 or learn this world is enough to salve all.

Men are not from here, so here
 is transient way to greater stars,
rewarding homes—or learn that
 here is gift, here is only home.

Preserve this world’s nature, its land
& air & living beings, its magick to keep
& perpetuate this world—or plunder
 it to ruin awaiting departure of a few.

These until distorted more & more
 over time, hard voices that cried the
world as illusion, or that humiliating
 empty-eyed faith in the fables
of man-godds trumped tolerance of
 the world’s variety, certainty over
wonder, the shine of some lives
 built on the rags of others.

You landed this Island as though
 to hunt me down, command with
your weapons answers to how
 to save this world when all you
really sough was how to save
 men, how to save yourselves.

Men will do none of these, yet
 one will come that may. She will
come to you by the waters surrounding
 this Island, King. You will return
here, alone of these, & build a new
 Kingdom for her, for the choice she
will mature to make.

I then scattered your father the King
 & the others, half-forgetting, half-dreaming
what they had experienced here.
 Men lose nothing in their hearts,
however far distant. Perhaps to find
 one another gain, by your choice.

When you were a child dreaming
 in this Gate, you were kind to me,
me wished you would one day keep
 this world, perhaps again shape
Creatures with me to our delight.

& now you will soon choose,
 soon return from those at the
far end of time who could do nothing,
 those who would choose men over
the world itself, who could demon
 their own minds to divide their fate
as two.

What comes, my old friend, by the heart
 tendered in you, by your feeling if
this world can be salve & home & magick
 enough for all.

* * * * * *
      
lvi. Natural Bridge

The braided thread leads us to her
 now, even my friends agreeably
let this be so. Its many twisted
 color glows in my hand, urges me
hmmm to pay attention, beward & be aware.
 My friends hmmm too, but do not try,
it is how they are. So many turns
 in this Tangled Gate, more than possible.
Was this a thing I can honest say
 I made, or were my dreams simply
how it passed to be into this universe?
 The Gate’s Gate?

When you thoughts weird & droop like this,
 when my steps trudge & stumble,
my friends will nudge me rest.
 We cluster under this White Birch now.
They nap peaceably in my lap by the mauve light.

The bulk of my long overcoat stirs me
 restless. Rough pages of a handmade book I’ve bought
with me from my many miles & years.
 Bits of diary, theory, ephemera.
Shards from a massive lingual crag, rude
 steps on my way to this grassy seat,
these magickal Creatures, this careen
 toward you. This warped careen.

“Love will warp your path!” Is that
 what the small exotic man said that last time
we sat together with his friend th Tramp
 outside the little shack at the Threshold
of the Dreaming?

We’d sat together many times as a kind
 of needed rite I’d discovered my first try
to travel it. The Dreaming a unique
 stream through Dreamland, a way
to collapse the border to waking,
 change the waking, change history,
change human history & thus the
 worlds, so long sought.

But I wasn’t coming back this time.
 My friends would let me do this.
There was no other choice.

I’d sat that night, hundreds of years hence,
 writing my last thoughts, per chance
it went wrong, per chance what the
 Dreaming spat out its far end were
two inert bodies, not one.

These pages before me, many times folded
 & centuries worn. Start to see that
awake now are the White Bunny, the Imp,
 the turtle not a turtle, gazing up from
my lap. Expecting?

I read the old words I wrote hundreds
 of years from now. Choose the last pages
of this book for them to hear.

“The force of human history was on the side of the fist, not the open hand. Both were powerful, but one spoke to the most helpless fears of mortal men, that whatever health or happiness or prosperity was achieved, it would not be maintained. Beat would slow, breath would stop, mind would cease. Not a billion preachers of a billion magickal, instructional, or just comforting words would prove it otherwise.”

They sniff, once each, but no further comment.

I read on. “Proof, assurance, a reply to despair, lay beyond men’s daylight lives of grab & fuck. Even as they belonged to their world in a way few could really know, their world belonged to something else. It lay in the open hands of those who had begat it from the ashes of other worlds, other men.”

My friends gaze me quietly. I speak
 my continuing thoughts as though
they had heard them all. Which
 they may have.

“I brought the Blue Suitcase too.
 It was my lifelines tossed back
to find & give to her, give us all a chance.”

They all sniff when I mention you.
Waiting me finish this to get along
 to you again. I nod.

“The Tangled Gate preceded this world, & became source of human dreams, Those nightly clues of worlds elsewhere, of many kinds, with offer of many threads. Dreams inspiring men to create, to build, to raise up civilizations.

“But it was not enough. Those who believed men apart from this world, superior to it, meant to feed blindly, & feed more breeders perpetually, & explain their exception to all other life as the will of an invisible hand they alone resembled, failed to understand that hand, that it held all equally.

“They failed to understand that it was many hands, that these hands more & more despaired, that these hands had contrived a child, not a savior, but one who could take of this world as it ended, something of it beyond it, to the next world.

“That as she passed through the Red Bag, she would become the world itself, its lessons, its losses, its beauties, its smallest sands, its heart loving still as what the Emandians left behind was lost, s men did not save themselves, as their worlds did not recover its grand & subtle powers, as time itself ran out, & th last breath, & the last beat, & the last dream.”

I’ve never seen them study me so close.
For the words I have not written here too.
I tell them now more of what I’ve told none before.

“In Dreamland there is an indigo
shade to things, but only sometimes,
& not for long. Not a thing noticeable,
& certainly no instructions. I’d spent
fruitless years compiling my notes like these”
& I smack my book with my hand—
They sniff uncertainly but hold their places—
“Only to realize the thread through time
was a series of hops with no way of
returning”—the White Bunny sniffs once at
my use of the word hops—& these
rarely seen, short lived indigo shade
to things were the stops on the way.”

I sigh. “But to arrive back here,
 to send along the Blue Suitcase of
needed tools”—gesture the braided thread
 tucked amongst them—“needed a
breach back from where I come from.”

Sigh worse. “The Sleeping Capsule
 I contrived was tight. The potion bitter.
When it would fill with colored mist,
 it was more like death than dreaming.
Red first, the drift to orange & yellow.
 Each its dream, yet still tight in the
Capsule, still bitter taste on my tongue.
 Green next, then blue. So often I
stuck there, the blue dream. Usually
 the saddest. Finally I trebled my
dose, the poison in it fierce, but arrived
 the violet dream. And this only to
arrive the desert I spent years
 searching for the shack.”

More sniffs. Impatient? Curious?
Maybe they simple know my long
 sadness in this telling.

The White Bunny hmmms me, the others
 join in, urge me in, deep in.
  We go together now.

I found the shack, & the exotic
 little toothless man & his boon companion
the tattered man. Called himself the
 Tramp. Took me hundreds of dreams
to know sure they guarded the Threshold
 of the Dreaming.

They kept me each time I made it to
 them. The exotic little man liking me
to click-click & noise-noise, cackle
 & gnatter with him. The Tramp would
show me his rudely assembled book
 of pictures he’d drawn of those he’d
loved. Long-haired wenches, bald warriors,
 blended beings of magick & muscle,
songs of virgin sunshine on empty
 worlds, & cocks & cunts & torsos
fucked, chewed, set aflame & held close.

I grew more desperate, more unwilling
 to return, failed, to waking. Drank
more & more of the potion, wondering
 if dying my body how not to return.
Each time I would eventually fall
 away back eventually.

We are walking toward the shack
 now, my friends & me. I read them
the rest of what I wrote that last
 night, when I drank all the potion
I had, enough I was sure to kill me.

“I am going back to find you, if you will let me. Perhaps together we will save this world or, if we cannot, we will travel to the next world & do there what would could not here. I leave tonight.”

We arrive the shack & my friends
 delight to greet the exotice little
man & the Tramp. The Imp &
 the little man in his odd skull cup
cackle wild happy together.
 The White Bunny & the turtle
not a turtle sit with the Tramp
 on his little stool, sniffing, hmmming,
passing news as such magickal Creatures might.

I set on my stool, put my rude book
 inside my Blue Suitcase, with
its box of colored threads &
 other tools. I watch them & wait.

Then, for the first time, the door
  of their shack is open & we all
are walking in. Was this itself the
 Threshold to pass?

There are no walls in this shack,
 & it is immensely larger than possible.
All around us are frozen rainbow waterfalls,
 sightlessly high. I stand helpless
in this beauty for an ever of time.

Then aware of the Tramp & exotic
 little man speaking in some tongue.
Embracing, sad, the Tramp very sad.
 My friends swarm the little man
next, kissing affections such as shown
 the Princess. Nearly such. He nods
me a twinkling something I cannot reck.

The exotic little man now grasps
 my elbow, about his height, &
urges me close to one of the frozen
 rainbow waterfalls. He urges us study
it close, cold & colder as we lean in,
 & pictures within it emerge.
His usual cackling now more hmmming,
 which curls me in sweetly

We are among them, nothing solid
 for a long time. Endless, ancient
Woods, great smoking cities mounds
 of wisdom & sentence, whole civilizations
of men summed in sentence or an image,
 unknown depths of the Wide Wide Sea,
& a Great Tree at the heart of the world.
 I know a little of some of these things
from my many studies, but very little
 for all those years, all those sheaves
I wrote.

Then we are walking, no, climbing.
 A slow rocky climb past old craggy
formations, some the height of three men,
 then a curving stumble down more
pressing stones, & the water’s music
 below presses & presses closer, a watching,
aware roar—

until comes a stone wall too tall
 before us to reck all, its ancient
wizened face, not a face, but not
 not one.

No ancient eyes open. No croaking tongue
 speaks. Yet language, some kind unmined
from inner breath & beat, like skin of
 man greeting skin of stone.

A choice. A chance to return.
A chance, even, to give up this world
 for my old one. What I might be
  now, given the man I am become.

No. Be a king of my own world or
 find my place at your side, whatever
  this means?

A great rocky roar all about me,
 the cackling stone itself makes?
I rise from my crouch & behold
 a stone bridge endless into the
distance, decorated high & low
 with many colored blooms.

I remember the exotic little man
 & look among the rocky ruins
about me for any sign of him.
 I find only his odd skull cap,
tuck it into my long overcoat, just in case.

This Natural Bridge proves my
 next challenge in my passage
through the Dreaming. No wider
 than a footbridge, living among
sometimes wild swirls of wind &
 ice & rain & snow, covered in
blooms some of which dazzle my eyes
 or nose to topple me off, cut my
feet to do so, dream me happy
 arrived when I’ve taken just two steps!

But I think I see evidence of the
 indigo shade too, ways to elude
falling & waking up yet again to
 my nearly gone body in my Sleeping
Capsule, me now kept alive by others
 who think I’ve got the answe to
save the world.

Maybe. Or just to save me & you.

I follow the indigo shades over
 the Natural Bridge at least
&, amazing to the twisted strange
 world of myself, I arrive fully
to a tent, long ago, midst of
 some men’s war. Your father
  the King’s war, Princess.

I look down & see my three dear
 companions, & there is no upset
in them for this wild & weird thing
 I’ve told. I wonder again at all
I do not know. I love you & I love her
 as I never have any, & will protect
you all as I can. Whatever I am.

The White Bunny sniffs twice & leaves
 my lap, begins to hop slowly on,
waiting us. Tiny Imp hops off me too,
 gnatters a song, followed by the Turtle
who isn’t a turtle, all of them singing now.

I stand. The braided thread in my hand
 glowing, & hmmming me on.
I follow my friends, & keep
 wondering this world.

* * * * * *

lvii. Away?

Suddenly, elsewhere. When I open my eyes,
 I find myself leaning against my strange
friend from childly dreams. I still
 lean now, I still trust him.

He is like Creatures, like the White Woods,
 like the Island & the Wide Wide Sea itself.
Mind to listen, know, wonder. Know more
 & wonder better.

He is playing our old game, nudging music
 from the air, giving it shape. His touch
is light, gentle, but sure to its purpose.
 Turns to me with his strange smile,
shows me his work. My friend the White Bunny.
 I am pleased. She solids, settles
to this world. Sniffs twice. Takes my lap.

“Where are the others?”
“She is here & there both.”
“Where are we?”
“Near the road away.”
“Away?”

His look is sad. At first resembles
 the man I recall, then more like the
Great Tree, a swarm of buzzing around
 it, Woods, Sea, Island; of all these,
among them, equally. No need a King
 to rule by his conquest of the world
ever farther. He is not like my father
 who obsesses to break the wills of men
& magicks alike.

“Who were those people? The Sleepers?”
“The last of men. Your Architect’s people.”
“They failed.”
“Yes.”
“Can it be different?”
“Men learn slow. Easily forget. Fear. Sloth.”
“Can it be different?”

Long silence. “Mold men’s fears
 to a fist, directed by mind to love,
& serve green as source & best guide;
 this world as model to all the stars.”

The White Bunny naps in my lap
 as always. He makes to stroke her fur,
hesitates, doesn’t.

“Can it be different?”
“Just reorder your question’s words,
 Princess. Where there is life,
there is choice.”

The Beast now lets me know him,
 embraces me fully among his branches,
his buzzings, his Seas deep. His empty
 canyons, under full moons, his frozen rainbow
waterfalls, his spring rains. His green buds,
 his curling leaves. His patterns of
upheaval & calm. His epochs of ice
 & of green. His multitudinous pulsing,
breathing, buzzing, swimming, soaring,
 mating & consuming.

Men are contrived from music &
 air, as much as Creatures.
Will what by loose fists & shoddy minds,
 or by green, by Dream. Or more.
  or better. Serve the world. Love its magicks.

I hug him like my beating & breath,
 my dancing, my music, my singing.
  My many loves. Love him like them.
I want to remember it all while away.

“Thank you, Princess. Safe journey. Goodbye.”

* * * * * *

lviii. A Shimmer, A Break

The road away is long & straight,
 brown hills on either side, like something
withholds from me here. Me an unsure
 stranger to what this is & why. But maybe
also something wishes elsewise, sniffs at me,
 wills me sniff in reply.

Sniff twice, thrice, four times, a shimmer,
 nothing. I stroke the White Bunny,
asleep in my lap, close my eyes,
 behold her legs extended, ears flying back,
tug me a little nearer this, now more,
 find myself changing, thought & instinct
one, tug a little deeper & I treble in time.

A shimmer, a break. Back, hence?
 Neither, both. None, one, many.
Here is no time, & every time.
 The plains are brown, now green,
now the Sea, skies above filled with
 starcraft? The road remains.

I hop forward, slow unsure, need to tug
 more clearly. Stop hopping, steady,
close my eyes . . . feel around . . . There!
 A thread, but thick, like braided?
I open my eyes now to see.

Have they always bee amongst us?
Is this their processional away?
Am I one among them?

They are sad but something else too.
Some kind of . . . waiting joy?
A next world to come to, open hands,
 open doors, strange new changes.

Seeming unnoticed, I hop among their
 numbers. Their hierophants feathered up,
like hawks & eagles. Their apprentices
 in rainbow garb, simpler, humble.
Others luckier play instruments, pipes, guitars, horns,
 sometimes cluster & raise up stomping,
howling songs.

Staying near the braided thread, I continue
 hopping forward through the processional,
toward the glinting glaring thing ahead.
 It is the Wide Wide Sea.

Distracted, delighted, I am become girl
 again, & wonder if this is the Island’s shore,
its same Sea? They are all one, I realize.
 One, many, none. The musicians, the apprentices,
the hierophants even, are splashing, bathing
 one another. I keep a distance from
all this when I am approached by a smiling
 man, familiar.

It is the Hero who abandoned me &
 the others to that other Island. He holds
out open hands & bids me listen a moment.

“It was by the Architect I did all I did.
 His will led me through all my actions with you.”

The surf, noise, & laughter cascades around us.

“Are you among this number?”
“No. Not really. I was sent to guide you.”

Silence. He looks closer at me, arrogance &
 brute expectation gone from his face. I wait.
We sit together on the sand, watching
 all this revelry. He speaks again, not regarding me.

“I was raised by agreement between
 men & our people. Those who did not wish
to leave. To find another way. My purpose
 to contact the Beast, ask his help.
The words you gave me were for him.
 A surrender, a truce, then when
you entered the Gate you would be aided
 to pass on.”

“There’s no need for truce or surrender
 between myself & the Beast,” I say
suddenly, firmly. “We are friends.
 He would help me however I ask.”

He nods, confused. I smile him continue
 his confession, like he’s practiced in his heart.

“The word you spoke to me, that night,
  on the ship, it was the Architect’s
 next instruction. It’s why you & they
  are all here now. It’s why what
happens next.”

We sit quiet agai, watching the celebrants
 return from the water, dry & dress.
As more ready themselves, there is a sense
 from them of waiting.

Long moment till I realize they can see me
 now. “Waiting for me?”

He nods. His face changed. Neither arrogant
 or uncertain. Steady.

“What my choice in this?”
He starts. “It is all by your choice. You decide
 what will be.”
“When?”

He smiles, stands, offers his hand. Soft & strong.
 Would still kneel low at a word, if I bid so.

We walk together among the crowds,
 further along the road away, evening
now coming on.

“What did the Beast say to you?”
Silence. Then: “I asked him what a Hero is,
 the part I was raised to portray.”
Silence. Then: “He said a Hero understands fear
 in others’ hearts as well as he does in his own.”
I nod.

There are now many shouts ahead, fields by
 the road filled with tents, bonfires. Dancers &
musicians. Stars heavy & light in the sky.
 I keep close to this Hero who understands.
He coaxes me laughing to dance, some
 of his old swagger returning.

I let myself loose of all battered down
 within me, loose to the fires, the music,
the stars heavy & light. I don’t know
 what the morrow will bring, I wonder
about the Architect & my dear friends.

Then his strong hand smiling grasps round
 my waist &, for a merciful while,
I don’t wonder at all.

* * * * * *

lix. Remembering the Masques

There seems still a long way to go by morning
 as everyone packs up to move along.
The Hero tells me it is fasting day, but
 does not know what for.
“I know little the whys of my makers,” he says,
 without bitter. “They trained me for what
we have done & are doing. I’m a map
 with a single path, finite steps. A cypher.

I walk beside him, lightly trebling in time,
 wishing to know better the whys for us both.
Our pace slow that I keep my steps about me.
 The Hero keeps my lips wet against the dry
winter sun. Somehow still in the Tangled Gate?

Trebling does not help me to know better.
 And what I already know does not explain.
As always when dismayed, I think of my friends
 during our best days in the caves & tunnels
of my childly dreams. Them so importat,
 simple, & wise.

There were these masques that occurred
 rarely, when the caves & tunnels would be
entirely decorated by my arrival, everywhere
 instruments & singing, more kinds to meet &
know than usual. My friends would insist
 on my head a crown of vines & pebbles, &
that I preside over all as they wished.

Once in particular, & very strange.
 I knew my dear friends by their guises
as Woods sprites, sunshine, red berries,
 laughing fancies. But there were others, too,
not Creaturely in form. They gathered round me,
 these beautiful yet so aerie forms of
men & women, smiled me in ways
 impossibly sad & loving both.

I wondered their strange tongue, yet not
 so foreign to me, as they sang to me
in one long braided voice:

“When the colorous lights have dimmed,
when the music has slowed to smoke,
when there is sniff of calm night & then no more,
when touch brittles, maybe to break,
when best taste is old & cold, hurts—

“The Red Bag, doorway back to Dreaming—
The Red Bag, the path, come,
The Red Bag, come, trust, come here.”

I see now twice, thrice, many along
 this road, as braided a sight along this
road away as their voices in my memory.

I am with my friends in this masque.
I am waking wet spring morning in my
 bed in the Pensionne
I am swimming my all to make this
 Island’s shores.

I reach along, further on & back, deeper
 braiding all this disparate. Falling forever
from the stars & skies, down deep forever
 into the Wide Wide Sea. Standing yet
hidden among a friendly number surrounding
 a small hut in the White Woods.
Living far times from now in a city,
 in a castle, in a farm’s strange red house.

The Hero catches me sudden & leads me
 off the road. We sit in peaceful grass,
the day warm but kind. He makes me drink
 water, looks around once, feeds me
something like a handful of fruits & nuts
 from his knapsack. Tenders my strange,
deep weakness.

A sudden good thought & I take from my
 pocket the few things I still carry.
Knife, brush, my totems. One resembles
 my tiny gnattering imp friend. I press her
into his hand. “A gift.”

He face fears, retreats. She cackles, friendly,
 & I smile him too, the lush girlish smile
he once longed to possess his own.

I speak him quiet, serious. “You’re the Hero
 they guises you as. No longer a simple path
or a cipher.”

He is quiet, helps me up. We walk among
 the hierophants, apprentices, musicians.

“I would defend your life from any & all.”

I nod. I take his hand in bonding friendship.
Such an act ours together to do.

* * * * * *

lx. Unitive

“This can't go on forever
This war in a ring
Gotta bring us together
Like beads on one string”
—The Who, 2019.

i.

Remember some things, & better,
 & different, deeper cool beneath,
warmer flesh to their images & noise.
 It’s what I’ve returned to this Island
to do, re-braid my many selves, light up
 & fuse old gaps with new sparks.
Grasp fuller the strange girl in me,
 grasp & go, hereon. Better.

I’ve lived long times at the Pensionne,
 tended its wild Garden, learning them,
teaching me. Apprenticed to the White Tiger,
 his kindly Sea-blue eyes, growling wisdom
in touching his black-striped fur,
 its beautiful calm, sweet music like a
veil of stars round my raw yearning heart.
 I stopped running from my lost home,
the King my father, my dear friends
 in dreams, my many kinds of loves.

When dreams came again, as so long
 they hadn’t, they were of this Island,
& the Architect asking me to return,
 to find him in the Tangled Gate.
My body asweat in these dreams,
 warm again to those old wants, yearns
of my hips & breasts, hands & lips.

To tame him, to burn him, to drown him
 in me, deep in me, to save him
atwist my limbs, mine, beg me, beg me,
 love me, mine own.

Yet we argued. Hearts like fists. Dreams or not.
“Why now?”
“You’re needed.”
“You wouldn’t let me in the Gate
 by waking, when I lived there.
  When you were my master.”
“You traveled to the Gate anyway.
 Many times. I knew.”
“What did you know?”

His face plain upon me, his spectral
 grey eyes within mine own, touching me
in ways mine own damp hands could not,
 possessing me within mine hardest breaths,
shaping me up as like a poem from
 a mound of moss.

“I knew then, I know now, that the
 deepest truths of the human heart
are made of its yearns. I forbade you
 travel in the Tangled Gate but gave
you maps to study, my telescope to peer it
 by. So you traveled it by dreams
to know it as few ever have, & these
 passing years have bound you still
deeper the Gate by absence & wish.

“And now you urge my return?”
“Ask your White Tiger.”

I never find him but he is before me,
 head sunk low for an embrace.
Always the Garden, I’ve never seen him 
 elsewhere, nor enter it, nor exit.

Not my master, Creatures never are,
 but a teacher, my tender. He taught me
what I most needed to know:
 kindness most binds.

When I resisted the farthest ends
 of his teachings, when kindness seemed
a second to self-preservation, or revenge
 he insisted me. A shake of his mane,
a correcting  growl. Pressed me again & again.

Kindness most binds. Many ways to heal.
 He would not me deny my dreams of
the Architect, nor nudge me along,
 nor tug me back.

“I have to go back, don’t I? Leave here?”
Quiet growling deep in his throat.

Kindness most binds. Many ways to heal.
Learning is about making better choices.
We clustered together in the Garden,
 in full moonlight.
“Come with me.” Only silence.
By morning our last embrace till the next one.

ii.

My travels since have brought me
 to this road, to an obscured understanding
of what I am. My heart’s strange yearns
 wrapped in an endless veil of stars.
Not knowing how to know where I begin
 or end in space & time.

We approach a kind of temple now,
 seeming cut into a cave. I’m unsure to see.
The crowd easy lets me press forward,
 like expecting me, waiting me, wanting me.

A tall, feathered hierophant faces me.
There is silence. Does he wish words?

“I wish nothing.” His words like a bow.

“Will I find my answers in there?”
Shakes his head. Another kind of bow.
Like I wondered him the color of mine own eyes.

He steps aside, & I walk toward
 the entrance, dark as its own shadow.
There is a stone basin of water, insisting
 a drink, like the Fountain, somewhere
back there. I nod. Splash, drink.
 Enter, not knowing if I will return.

For a moment, still blind blackness,
 shadow’s shadows, nor even the feel
of the ground under beneath my feet.

I breathe slower, do not cry out,
 hmmm a little to calm, perhaps invite.
Something tests me here.

I reach within me, strange girl’s
 strange heart, nudge more my
hmmming, sniff a little too for any clue.
 Images emerge & hang about me.

I see the book of patterns my father
 the King & I would study close together
by evening, contriving deeper ways into
 my dances at first light, & their
waking songs of dream. I studied
 with him, dreamed my own dreams,
danced for him, wondered whatever
 could he learn from a strange girl’s
nude whirlings at dawn.

What was this book we studied so?
 I reach out to touch it, turn its
frail pages, & now there is something
 here I know. These are gnatterings
rudely writ! My friend the Imp’s
 playful ur-tongue, yet wisps of words
wrap around my fingers, like “there is
 no final thing to know,” now tickle up
to my brow, & now lay soft upon my head,
 a crown of vines & stones, clue & thread.

iii.

The braided thread now comes near to me, &
 I follow, & a half turn, & there my beloved
brother, finding me disconsolate that I would
 not see my friends again, listening
to me tell of their world in dreaming caverns
 & tunnels underneath the Tangled Gate.
Never a denying word, just this: “You will limp
 now as I sometimes do, but not always.
You will find each other again.”

Another half turn, & there now my friend
 who claimed my father the King’s heart,
made off like a preying bandit. I see them
 together in the chamber they alone used.
Her straddling him, dark hair down, hips moving
 impossibly slow, head reared back in snarl,
growling wide as forever as she sucks him into her,
 deep in, till nothing seems to remain, & now
leaving their chamber, still nude, him sweating
 up from the blood trashing her walk along
the empty corridor, him old splayed remains, &
 her gone completely. My lost father.

I press myself harder deep in this darkness,
 command now to know, & find 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 was
 never born, never an infant. Created
like a poem from moss, no couple loved me to be.
 The King not my father, nor his dead first
Queen my mother? Why do I know this is true?
 Why have I always known?

I tire. What do I do here?

There are wisps of song, of a kind with
 my despairing, like my dear Singer
of childly yore. I reach toward them &
 they settle like a hummingbird on my
outstretched finger.

Singing, “Many kinds of time, several
 binds of time, & how it looses to air!”
I think of my Architect, & the singing
 molds his face in the dark before me.

iv.

“You’ve come.”
“You’ve led.”

I feel soft pressings against my arms
 & shoulders. My friends! Soft fur of the
White Bunny, tiny gnattering Imp, turtle
 not a turtle. So close to me again.
Heartbeat. Breath. Skin. Hmmming.

We linger together, me & the Architect
 & these lovely Creatures. Like this
possible? Like together we could learn
 to learn to know each other?

They love him too now, because they
 have learned him, brought him here
to me. Kindness most binds. Like all
 my friends & teachers with me
in this strange & crucial moment.
 Like by my love for each & all of them
will I decide what next.

v.

I drift from my friends, wander
 memories that seem more departing.
The sweet, high music of the Traveling Troubadour.
 The dark fanciful music of the One Woods
 when all wake deep in the night & sing out.

My father the King on sleepless nights,
 his spyglass peering the black water.
His 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 knowing what she is,
 or what I am, or all this we lost.

seeing her slip back
 into the sea as his boats raised their sails.

My Blue Suitcase. The box of many threads.
 I begin to fear. What do I know to do?
I twist in, & in, & in, feel myself somehow
 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 me.
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 from me to its
 every corner, so many I have not known,
& all upon feel failure & pain in their blood & bones.

No! (leaving) No! (leaving) N-! (leav-) N-!
 (gnatter) (N!) (gnatter!) (N!) (gnatter! gnatter!)

No! Help me, Architect! My friends! Beast!
 Hero! My brother! 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!”

vi.

The world spasms. The world shakes.
The world holds. I reach into its maw
 & fill it with everything I’ve ever learned,
 ever known, ever loved.

I bind myself to this world, its flaws,
 its beauties. I push time back, smooth it
like a thin blanket along across a long, bare back.
 It is there for those not yet 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
from its countless fractures,
 how they chorus.

My efforts tire me, & I feel my friends
 join me, cluster me close, lift me up in
our hmmming, help me push open again
 this world, keep this world, arriving,
now arriving, close, closer, more, & more,
 & a push, & now it’s . . . water. Sea water!
 My beautiful world’s Wide Wide Sea!

I am in mid-dive into the Sea, my Blue
 Suitcase tied from my waist,
bidding my friend goodbye with a wave,
 it is the Hero, my dear 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, but will
 guard by my blood hereon.

I have bound myself to this world.
I have remembered some things & bound
 myself here.

I will climb the rocks to the Dancing Grounds,
 will dance again on these girl’s legs
I’ve chosen to keep.

I will let the Castle slow return to green,
 One Woods hungering like a long waiting
kiss for its possession.

The Tower, by my touch, will be Tree
 & Tower & Starcraft in one, & my Architect
will have his day & night without end.

Finally, come to the Tangled Gate, that
 which I have loved best is here, always been,
& not left nor right by the Fountain, but
 through, no way in but through.

The Fountain’s luring waters swallowing me
 as pass into the caves & tunnels
of my friends, my childly dreams,
 & they will receive me by feather &
fur & fin, happy sniffs all around.
 Yet still a part of me will draw elsewhere too.

Away, away, deeper & deeper, ever toward &
 arriving finally at the Red Bag.
And here we I will close what has been too
 long been opened, the wound that was
the loss of our home, long ago, &
 what compelled our travels to the stars,
in search for a new one to salve.

I was made to help us heal, but healing is hereon.
Healing is sending those who wish along their
 way, imagining some next perfect world to find.

“There is a door. And now we pass through!”

One by one, till they are gone, till
 perhaps I am all left?

I lead my dear friends up through the tunnels
 to the Cave of the Beast, my friend too,
lead him now, & his mate, into the paths
 of vines & stones, dancing them all along now,
hmmming breaks open to singing & shouts,
 till we exit the Gate, & on to the
Dancing Grounds, where I will no longer
 dance by myself, & only by dawn.

My childly dreams now awake forever,
 unitive, welcoming & inviting to all who
find these pages.

Listen in your dreams for our singing
 from this Island, its caves, its tunnels,
its Gate. Join us in our unitive hmmming!

Dance our music through your lone &
 daylight hours. Touch & teach others how,
so close, smiling, so close. They are real.

December 8, 2019
Milkrose, Massachusetts

******

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