“I tell you, there are more worlds,
and more doors to them,
than you will think of in many years!”
― George MacDonald, Lilith, 1895
xxi. Great Mound of Moss
Gate-Keeper was showing us a game
he would sometimes play with the Imps,
when somewhere far from other people-folks
in the White Woods, & them agreeably about.
“We, or at least I, called this game Imitations,
as you will see why,” him smirking &
leading us to a clearing where he had just harked
a Chaos of Imps cackling & skitterings about.
He sets up his Tripod at a the edge of the clearing,
it glowing in the dusking light’s friendly, peculiar colors.
Patches of Mushrooms spreading through patches
of Rainbow Moss. Calls us close to stand with him
before his Tripod, & together lean under
a kind of green & golden cloth, covering us all,
hmmming lightly.
“Close your eyes, & imagine with me the endless
poppy fields of my home world, these Mentor you
showed me, & Roddy I told you of. Hmmm with me
of them! Together we will sing them forth,
& then behold what occurs!”
Our shared hmmming begins slow & uncertain,
as they sometimes do, but then begin to braid
deeper, fuller, dusking with this clearing,
softing, like down of a dream.
Slowly too, but curious as could be,
the Chaos of Imps, one, then many, hark, &
cackling join in. Clearing filling with
many, merry musics!
“Now, my friends, open your eyes slowly, &
let us look through the lens of my friend before us,
& behold!”
We do, & behold the clearing transformed
into a brilliant, crimson sheen of blooms!
Each one still cackling & hmmming away!
Singing: “We are not here to sleep you down,
but dream you awake!”
Roddy hears something else too, dusking through
all this music & song. The Perfect Laaa! braids
into it too . . . yet, somehow, not in what
he views in the lens before him . . . but . . .
behind him somehow?
He slips from under the cloth, eyes so dazzled
by their shared vision he has to turn &
stagger away from the clearing.
Sits heavy against a great tree-trunk,
slowing his breathing to calm, hark his abouts better.
Yet still that Perfect Laaa! somewhere only
vaguely near How to give chase of it?
Then a thought. His uncle’s compass, gift from
his boyhood, ever tucked into its own deep pocket
of his jacket. Dusking golden case,
its inscriptions less readable than memorized
by him: “Get out to the Green more, Rod.
It’s coming.”
Holds it tenderly in his hand for a long moment.
So much lost.
* * *
The compass’s needle responds very strongly
to the Perfect Laaa! but I cannot say how.
But, yes, as it travels, the needle tracks, very closely.
I stagger up, stand, make to follow.
I hear my Brothers’ voices among the many
braiding, & especially my King’s.
I vow: I am coming to all of you.
* * *
Now arriving, near, nearer, & come to
a Great Mound of Moss, alike the one I had
lain in my first time hearing the Laaa!
Feeling like the many-colored Mound &
my dear old compass have together drawn
me here, to best listen anew, I gently
settle myself in. Feeling my worries again
lift from me, loose & lift, & sniff something
kindly, luring, ever softing, ever sinking . . .
The Laaa! cackles & hmmms all around me,
& this time I join in too, a feeling near like
when I was a boy, running to keep up with
my brothers, them laughing & urging me
along, slowing me for me, loving me, loving me.
To see again the two of you, long unknown,
as well as the Brothers of my manhood . . .
Sinking now seems more arriving, &
I open my eyes to find myself under
a long unseen quilt, many kinds of feathres
embedded. Crow. Peacock. Robin. Still cannot
identify them all. This room is dark but
nearly familiar. I feel something strange
in my pocket & pull out several glowing blue pebbles
Where?
Mailbox House. So long unseen! The blue pebbles
glow more to reveal me the crudely nailed
together frame of the bed in which I lie,
& the writing table next to it. On the table
is writing paper, toasted tan in color, &—how?
A battered copy of Aftermath by Cosmic Early.
I think of red-haired Iris & her many letters I would find
in that silver mailbox just outside, shaped like
a loaf of bread, red handle raised for some, or lowered
for none. Should I? After all this time?
I do. Whatever dream or vision or Moss travel
I am in, I step outside into the Full Moon’s
night, & walk to the mailbox. Its red handle
is up. A letter inside.
A cryptic handwriting on the envelope
still spells out, “For Roddy, upon your return.”
I knew it is yours.
* * *
Dear Roddy,
What you cannot recall is how you ended up
on the spaceship. You have only recently
recalled how you & your King, not fully awake,
not fully together, fled the Island of the
Tangled Gate, without your other Brothers.
How you could not shake yourself to ask:
How? Where? Why? Did you save the world?
And nothing became clearer on your voyage
on the Wide Wide Sea, back to your Kingdom.
The smiles that greeted you. The questions
in your heart shaking to ask, none others did.
The nights you spent alone, sans King or anyone else.
And you wonder: why did you war with
your King? Why did you drive him from
the Mainland back to the Island of the Tangled Gate?
Was it you or he who wished to return?
Learn the truth now, Roddy. When you could
not stop his return to the Island,
to the Tangled Gate, you came back here,
to this Mailbox House. Someone had convinced
you there was another way to save your
Brothers from here. Your King would not
listen to you.
* * *
Mentor finds Roddy sprawled face down
in the many-colored Great Mound of Moss,
out cold. A letter clutched in his hand. Gently
looses it from his grasp, & sits next to Roddy,
free hand resting gently on his back, reading it.
Grimaces. Nods. Smiles a bit.
“It was about time, Roddy.”
* * * * * *
xxii. Aerie
Come to with a purring in my flattened face.
Cohere my fresh aches & raise up slowly on my hands.
Tis my Narrow Hut! How . . . ? Empty as ever, but—
“You led me here, Roddy.”
Tis Mentor’s long lanky frame set angled against
the far wall. Hardly far really.
I groan & rest against the opposite wall to his,
still holding close my old purring quilt.
Better comfort than most I’ve known.
But this Hut, so long unseen. Its brilliant shaft of light
from high up between us. Once told my King
twas the closest I’d known to a praying chapel.
My King . . .
* * *
I study him through the shaft, as though its motes
could reveal this man truer than what little
I know. Striped knit cap, black & white, slouched low
as ever on his head. White spiked teeth, yet not fangs.
Long grey overcoat. Brown pants. Tall white boots.
He waits out my study, quiet & patient as Creatures.
Suddenly says: “You run swifter than any big man
ought be able.”
“Yet you found me.”
“Our story only half told.”
“I recall nothing. Nor your invitation there.”
He laughs, a rich, low, vibrating noise I’d rarely heard.
I sense his patience now waning. Wants to get back
to it, whatever it was, from which I had, failingly,
fled.
Says: “The Huts you lived in awhile trace back
timeless before your occupation. This one,
the several others, including the Mailbox House
we, in chase, came from.”
Oh. I flinch. Something.
* * *
Nods. “Roddy, I I knew it long before you. And we
knew each other long before our recent encounter
with Gate-Keeper.”
“Why can’t I remember?”
Mentor shifts about in his seat. “I’m no Tender
to sniff & know for sure, but I think nearing
your King again has become like a series of doors
to your memory’s full recall, each one harder
than the last.”
“And you part of this?”
“Very much.”
“Will you tell me now?”
“What do you last recall?”
* * *
Roddy holds his quilt close, eyes shut, looses
into the purring, long ago shards try
luring him . . . her blonde hair, purple eyes . . .
that great wave, frozen nearly dry . . . Leonardo’s
long red straw hat, feathery red whiskers, mashed nose . . .
that exotic little man & his desert shack . . .
“‘Neither death nor dream are truly a remote land,’” he whispers.
Starts. “That letter. Iris.”
“What else?”
“I’d . . . come back here . . . to my old Huts, so long
unseen.”
“Why?”
* * *
I hug my quilt friend hard. Purring near to hmmming.
“He . . . my King . . . vowed to raise an army
to return to the Tangled Gate, assault the Beast
till he told where our Brothers, where his Queen Deirdre.”
“And you opposed this?”
“We had barely survived all that!” I cry, fist pounding
my hand. “I did not know where our Brothers were,
but I felt them neither gone nor in that Cave either.
Nor that the Beast was our enemy who should
or even could be assaulted.”
“What did you do, Roddy?”
Anguished, I say: “I raised an army to oppose him.”
* * *
“Why did you keep coming back here,
to your Huts?” I ask.
Roddy twists & distorts into himself. His quilt
enwraps him now, hmmming, tendering.
“Shall I tell you now?”
Nods weakly.
I sit up straighr, my hands of their own will
plain open in my lap. Time to tell.
“Roddy, I told you before that I had Brothers like you?”
Nods.
“And I lost them too.”
Nods again.
Silence a moment.
Then: “I was the only one to make it down
to Abe’s Beach of Many World.”
He looks up sharply.
“I waited forever. They never came. Finally, defeated,
I returned to my home-world.”
“And your Brother in that strange yellow building?”
I nod, say nothing again a moment.
* * *
Then: “Abe told me before I left that more
Brothers would come someday. Promised he would
let me know.
“How? From so far? In your Dreams?”
“No. It was by the White-Faced Pink Cat Radio
in my Thrift Shop.”
Roddy nods.
“I believe twas by his Imp that somehow
the messages came.”
“How so?”
“Twas a strange program called TripTown.
A cackle . . . Laaaa! would mix into the dialogue,
& then Abe’s voice for a few moments. Then another
cackle . . . Laaaa! & he was gone again.”
* * *
Mentor closes his eyes to recite:
“Now traveling this stream like a mind
skating its own reflections, the liminal place
where is & also-is gifts other possibilities,
now move along, now dream awake!”
“It was his voice, Roddy, Abe’s, describing
my world!”
* * *
“Did you reply by Radio as well? An Imp
of your own?”
Mentor smiles, fuller than before. “No, Roddy.
I replied by Gate-Keeper.”
Roddy sits up straight now, yet also shakes his head,
like buried in the earth.
“Does he know?”
“No. Your company with him in my final
message down.”
Silence a long while.
* * *
“How did we know each other?” I ask.
“Abe told me your quest had seemed to fail,
Wobbled, scattered.”
“Seemed?” I snap. “We did fail!”
“No.”
I stare darkly the passing shaft between us.
“Abe told me it was time to make contact with you.
So I travelled to your Kingdom. Followed your steps.”
Silence.
“You would come back to your Huts more often.
Like retreating to your simpler days long ago here.”
Silence.
“Finally, I let you espy me up in a very tall tree
near Mailbox House.”
Silence.
Mentor laughs. “Actually, I’d been letting you
notice me more & more, following you in
your Kingdom. And into these White Woods.
And then finally catching me out in my Aerie.”
Pause. “You sort of shook me down.” Shows a repaired
patch on the elbow of his long coat. I nod, no more.
“And I told you some of who I am &,
more importantly, of the Forever Spaceship
beneath the Mailbox House.”
* * *
Roddy starts. “It’s under . . .”
Mentor nods. “It’s how you entered it for
the long trip you took.”
Roddy leans forward now. “Tell me all.”
Mentor looks down at his long fingers
twisting among each other. “You know yourself
it travels time like space. You can walk its length
toward past or future & not age a day, nor
lose an hour.”
Roddy nods.
“I believed you & your King could travel by it
to find your Brothers.”
“How?”
“Isn’t that what happened, Roddy?
Is happening now?”
Shaken, Roddy nods again. Unburying.
* * *
“But he wouldn’t come with you,” I say.
“No. He would only take his army to the Cave
of the Beast,” I agree softly.
“And you could not stop him, short of prisoning
or slaying him,” I say.
“So I led his Kingdom against him,” I reply.
“Called him & his followers ‘fanatics’ who would
bring their war home & ruin us all.”
“They would have prisoned him,” I say.
“But I let him go. Him & a very few followers.
Not enough to threaten the great magicks
of the Tangled Gate.”
“And you returned to me.” Then silence.
* * *
“I had to find the rest of my Brothers.”
“And I showed you the bed of Ferns nearby
that is the way in.”
“And I asked you to obscure my memories.”
“And the Forever Spaceship followed your will.”
“And I woke up there. Only the lavender trace
as my companion.”
* * *
Mentor stands, & comes over to sit next to Roddy.
“Why did you & yours fail?” Roddy asks suddenly.
He sighs. “No easy answer to that. Maybe
we lost faith. Maybe we lost each other.
Maybe saving the world grew less important
than filling our bellies & sating our loins.”
“‘Saving the worlds’?”
Mentor smiles, grips Roddy’s big shoulder.
“That’s what this has always been about.
That’s what you are bound to do. What we
couldn’t. It’s all that matters.”
* * * * * *
xxiii. Their Departure
“With dewdrops dripping,
I wish somehow I could wash
this perishing world”
—Bashō
Roddy Wakes
When I told you my King, ever my King,
finally told you that I would not be returning
to the Island of the Tangled Gate with you,
the light left your eyes, like flame become brick.
Our love had lost its bottom note, its bassline.
Still floated, as love long known does,
but without root now, without new fruit,
floated away from us, from me, from you . . .
Your dreams of her clawed you from within,
where nothing protects. No path forward
for you, no next step. Only memory, loss,
& the deepest, boniest claw in you, urging
return, like only choice, thus none . . .
return return return
I blocked your way. Our shared Kingdom
blocked your way. All but that pointing,
bony claw blocked your way. This smiling,
bony mania reared up in you slowly,
like that great frozen wave in my dreams,
ever & ever slow, with no recall of before,
& no retreat from it.
You would compel me return to the Tangled Gate,
to retrieve our Brothers, somehow also
retrieve your Queen. You & me & an army
of enough men stripped from our Kingdom’s
peaceful home to bring down that Gate,
& all within it.
The mysteries of what had occurred there,
last time, now recked a war’s tactical retreat.
Not to understand its what, nor care its why.
Just reassemble, in greater force, & return.
After I refused you, flame to brick,
we met less & less, till rare, till none.
Smiling mania does not know refusal,
or different ways to do.
But so often later I’ve wondered:
when I couldn’t persuade you to come
instead of me, why didn’t I clap you
down safely, till I was sure of my
better path for us?
Why? You are ever my King. You are ever my Brother.
A heart given in fealty never fully recalls.
I could only speak to who you had once been,
grope for his ear with my loving words,
near hopeless to descry our bottom lines new,
our bassline. Whatever its story, however dark,
like this diminishing night I wake to, love does
not, can not undo.
* * * * * *
Gate-Keeper Wakes
Look down & wonder: how not falling?
And down there, far, far below, my kin’s
cursed crashed spaceship? Whatever keeps me
high up here, invisible to mine eyes,
yet solid ‘neath me?
And yet too, above me, above! Every color
mixtured in dance, that glass roof,
countless forms writhing silently, as though
the timeless, true, only story of the world.
“We will indeed cross many worlds by
this Bridge of Glass,” my friends tell me
I mumbled, as I roused back here, slumped
against my lesser work on that large screen.
That damned TripTown.
Yet I smile them still, in this Thrift Shop’s
backroom gloom. “Yes. It’s right without
making sense,” while their looks think me
dozing & mumbling still. “We will.” Seeming
slump again.
Back on the Bridge of Glass, those timeless,
undulating colors up there, only true story
of the world, daring me untwine my friend
& try filming them. Mulling this, I look again
down below, & now see those haystacks, simple
marvels, scattered across that vast wild field,
seeming several sunsets clashing to occur.
Daring me film down there too? Which first?
And now below comes . . . how? But, yes, tis,
down there, my old home, the Exxtreem Roadbuss 2000,
now buried in weeds. About 30 foot long,
jarringly silver, like a long, strange loaf.
Filled front to rear with shelves of strange books,
radio equipment, TV monitors, taped-up newspaper
clippings of obscure wars & imaginal
assassinations, many alternative histories.
Old crates of jazz LPs, working toilet, five-pound thesaurus.
One TV monitor in back showed the live surface of the Sun.
One showed a hand writing a book in unknown tongue.
One a red-haired girl asleep, or dancing, or gazing me still.
Which, if any of these, my home now?
Whither bound, these Many Worlds?
* * * * * *
Mentor Wakes
They are soon, unknowing yet, going on without me.
They tell me their dreams, sip from their mugs
of Rutabaga Soup I ladle them up,
from the beautiful Soup Kettle I keep
always lidded, gift from the Thought Fleas,
their kind balm for my old losses.
Gate-Keeper, or Charlie, enjoys his ever
like a novel thing, like he hasn’t
countless times before with me.
Like Miss Flossie Flea will not again receive
him sweetly at the Great Clearing, nor
sup him like before with her magick’d Soup,
& send him along again, well-supplied for his travels.
They are soon, unknowing yet, going on with out me,
even as we pack up our knapsacks together
in my Thrift Shop’s backroom gloom,
talk of the Festival we are bound for.
I’ve not seen Miss Flossie in a very long time,
since my Brothers-less retreat from Abe’s Beach
of Many Worlds. Will hand off Charlie
to her this last time.
Will return to this dusty place alone, free,
& whatever freedom might bring for me
* * * * * *
Gate-Keeper’s Soup
She hands me a stone bowl of Soup,
& a wooden spoon. Her large eyes smile
‘pon me, as she brushes her leafy dress
with her beautiful paws, an impossible
depth of kindness & content in her large eyes.
She says, “We always see you come here as someone,
& leave as someone else.”
I think, try. “Am I really two?”
Smiles me calm. “You are as many as you wish.”
I sip my Soup, good as Mentor’s was.
Thought of his name twitches me a bit.
Think more, try again. “I use to be just one,
maybe, but I guess he’s gone.”
She nods. “You only need to choose for now.”
“This magickal Soup . . . sometimes helps me remember
. . . & sometimes forget?”
She nods again. Impossible depths of kindness & content.
“Because I left them? Because I have not
yet freed them?”
Nods again.
“And this time, with my new friend, &
his Brother Knights?”
Her paw on chin, thinking. “They are Heroes.”
I look at the ancient Kettle near us, &
about us at this Great Clearing, massed round
by beautiful tall trees, seeming
every kind of leaf & hue. “This Festival,
I’ve known it? Once, before, or many times?”
Tried all I am. All my thoughts spake. Twitch more.
She studies me close. Her soft paw on my forehead.
She hmmms me lightly, for clarity.
“You’ll need all of you hereon.”
“Charlie Pigeonfoot. Gate-Keeper.” These names
spake together twitch me too, but somehow less.
Nods. Smiles. Now we both know me.
* * * * * *
Roddy’s King
He thought of the many faces he’d seen
in his many travels, those he’d known
often & long, others known only a moment or two.
Faces of people-folk he’d loved, of kindly Creatures,
of the many kinds of beings he’d lived amongst,
in these White Woods, for so long.
And then there was the face of his King,
ever his King. Sometimes looked old, impossibly old,
tired, gaunt beyond mortality. And yet sometimes not.
Sometimes such a smile welled up out of him, ah,
could have remade the world.
Long hair, grayish hair, but not quite grey.
His voice low, steady, sure, mostly.
His eyes the color of the Wide Wide Sea,
like none others Roddy had ever seen.
He thinks ever more about his King’s face,
as he knows they are nearing each other again.
Remembers plainly the last time he’d glimpsed that face,
somewhere in that battle. Dirty, angry, wan.
Hopeless, past despairing. Flame to brick.
And yet. And yet. Even then, even there,
so powerful, yet unbowed. He tried to elude
recall of that last time. Return return return
There were so many earlier, better times to remember.
He’d often found himself looking at his King’s face,
as they & their Brothers were long on their travels,
countless calendars, to find the Island of the Tangled Gate.
His was one of those faces that told all,
yet confessed little. A puzzle, yet become
a kind of home. Bassline. Bottom notes.
Roddy was always happier to be nearer
his King than away. Nearer home.
Even toward the end, them all bone-worn,
heart-withered, he sometimes wished
they’d never find the Tangled Gate, ever travel on
together, ever seeking it, ever finding other things
to refresh them, revive their fraternity.
Keep them all together.
And now all of them nearing their reunion.
Roddy very grateful for what possibilities
it brings, this reunion, for them all.
Yet what he hopes for most is that
his King’s face, his beautiful Sea-colored eyes,
are clear, his head high again, & that
he accepts Roddy’s humble offer to travel
together again. Thinks that he will,
but the strange & dark thrill in the not-knowing.
Not knowing what will happen. Maybe reunion
won’t be easy after all. Maybe it does not mean
immediate re-connection. Maybe it means
something else for awhile.
He falls asleep, somewhere in these vastless,
beautiful White Woods, under the full Moon,
these melancholic thoughts covering him,
like a warm blanket, with many loving Bears on it.
* * * * * *
Mentor’s Last Words
The Lily Pond’s colors at first light twinkle,
twice, thrice upon themselves, doing &
undoing & redoing endless & countless &
wildly fine. Liminal, floating place,
between dream & day, where & other-where.
Soft release of a magick’s kiss.
Mentor has gone. His words of last evening
linger with the dawn’s departing touch:
“Remember unto forgiving.”
Now the two of us, & our abstruse path to
Abe’s Beach of Many Worlds, down below
the waters of the Deep Deep Sea, calm by
the waters of the Deeper Deeper Sea.
Where so much awaits.
We’ve hardly sat up when a wild cackle
surely splits kiss to day. That wee bit of
a merry black-&-white Pandy Bear Imp!
Crazy-eyed delight, summons us away to chase!
* * * * * *
Roddy’s Ago
Come a great Garden. Vast. Miles of wild blooming
colorous freedom. Cackles fading away,
her obscure task complete. Gate-Keeper smiles
& gapes & smiles some more, his tripod
camera yet untrying to film these wonders.
But I know them all, or at least have been
here before. A young man’s long ago,
first love of a memory.
“But how?”
“How what?”
I shake my head, feel how little my meager
words would tell.
Neither us knowing where next to go when
there is a flash of white among the many colors,
& a flying pair of furred ears, & now my
dear old White Bunny friend of a sudden leading
use a breathless pursuit to match that cackling Imp’s!
To love these Creatures is as often to heed
their do as aught else, be led where they will go.
I’d not forgotten this, nor very surprised when she leads
our clumsy, huffing forms, through clearing
after clearing, to the familiar sight of Mailbox House.
Its nearby bed of Ferns our way on.
* * * * * *
Their Arrival
Gate-Keeper crouches, as tho the ceiling
above them low, or collapsing. Walks
close by me, like I know better, can best root
out these imaginal dangers.
But none of what I know from my previous
times here teaches me what this time.
I know little what, or how, to find here now.
I know this Forever Spaceship travels time like space.
I know a Lavender Trace befriended me,
that last time, & led me to my freedom.
I know we are ever nearing you,
ever my King, & all my beloved Brothers,
known so long only by magick sings in
the White Woods.
I remember, too fiercely, flame become brick.
And, more lightly, remember unto forgiving.
Then, now, here, called back of a sudden.
Down that endless long glowing hallway: a color.
The color. Lavender.
“Hurry!” I try to croak. This third chase
the others gifted us.
* * * * * *
xxiii. Their Arrival
“Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel & kiss the ground.”
—Rumi
i. Prelude
Things change, they don’t undo—
but what afar can near again—
find new songs from ashes of green & gold—
Departure & arrival two legs of the same trouser—
Many musics, one long, near unending, song.
ii. Clover-dale
The Lavender Trace leads me to a wooden room.
Walls solid of bookcases. Ceiling of skittering stars.
An oldness to this place, a vast greediness of ages.
The dim air bothers by my moving through it.
Nothing expected of me not already countless better
offered before. Near to leaving but . . . a movement.
In one obscure corner of the too-many here,
a ragged figure sits, soft armchair of cracks & dust.
I slowly approach, & see he cradles in grasp
a strange pot, & grows from it a long green plant, tendril-y,
draping. And upon this beautiful plant is a
very large Caterpillar, with the most delicate features.
Forgetting this unwelcoming olden place, even too
the ragged figure holding the strange pot,
I lean in to study this Caterpillar close.
With an ancient, sweet, almost-but-not-quite
people-folks face. Unperturbed by my studyings, & all,
just steady crawling up & down, & around
this beautiful green plant.
A voice knicks my deep awe. The ragged figure,
smiling up at me. “Hello.”
“Hello,” I mimic speech.
“How are you?” Friendly, soft.
I try to think. “My friend is somewhere . . .
back there.” Gesture to no wooden doorway
behind me. “I’m not sure how to find him.
Or the rest of my friends.”
He nods, thinking, studying his own sweet little
friends a moment. His hair long & vaguely copper
under a dark woolen skull’s cap. His clothes darkened, too,
& old with age. Yet strangely cared for, still,
as are his thick boots. Raises a finger to me. Wait.
Roots around in several of his countless pockets
until he finds & extracts a scrap of paper.
Appears greenish in this half-willing light.
A writing implement too, scratches a few words
upon it. Hands it up to me with kindliest smile.
Words upon it read:
“Evolution. Synthesis. Ferment.”
Curious, no why, I turn it over & see a map.
“To the Manse,” it reads.
And then something.
And then something.
And then something more.
Not in that room anymore.
iii. Their Departure
Now I’m back in the corridor with Gate-Keeper, like all that
lost time not lost. We are following the Trace close,
in chase, as she also chases, a wee twittering
thing. Both only in view through his Tripod Camera’s
lens, so I clutch on his bony shoulder &
ragged pockets close as we near gallop to pursue.
But we lose track. Too many corridor turns to keep up.
We slow in defeat, both feeling how exit was near.
Then I finger anew & remember the Mossy scrap
in my pocket. And the way now clears, easily.
I direct us, breathless, through countless turns,
following sure a way I could not know down
featureless corridors. “There they are!”
Gate-Keeper cries too loudly. I feel wild about it all
too, for there is daylight ahead of them.
I am saying “thank you” to them just as
Gate-Keeper & I are now tumbling up
through the exit to whatever will catch us beyond.
But then I lose him.
Then I lose all.
And then something.
And then something more.
iv. Remember a Last Thing
The swaying of a boat, far out upon
the Wide Wide Sea. Here? How?
Quarters below deck of . . . our ship?
The very ship my Brothers & I sailed by
all those years in our chase toward
the Island of the Tangled Gate?
And before me, abed, dear stars ablaze,
tis my King.
He looks at me, sadly, past me, sadder still,
somewhere else even, his deep blue eyes
both very here, & very gone.
My mind claws itself violently to know again
this moment. Remember it.
He talks, like each word disassembles him a piece more.
“We Wobbled away, dear Brother, & further
still to come.”
Pauses like he will never speak again.
Speaks. “We’ll Wobble back together again.”
Though he lays before me, just us two
on this sturdy, sad boat, bereft of our
other Brothers, tis like we are already parted,
far parted.
The boat rocks, waves toss, winds blow,
stronger & lesser. He seems to retreat to sleep,
& I return to my steerings. Hardly gone a few minutes,
it feels like twice ever has passed.
Already I begin to forget this moment.
Forget that obscure promise of his.
And then something & something & something more.
v. Half Moon Bridge
The Bridge ahead is tall, steep, nothing on
this Beach beyond its view. Yes, this is
Abe’s Beach of Many Worlds, we’re arrived
at last. Our boots trodding its heavy, musical sand.
We hurry, we slow, neither matters as it on comes
by its own will. Neither of us is pressed to talk,
but we do. Am I really here?
“We’re close, Roddy. Do you feel it?”
“I do. Not sure why, but yes.”
“Your Brothers. You feel them near?”
“Yes, I do.”
“They call this liminal, this kind of moment.”
“I’m glad we came this far together.”
He pauses. We’re arrived the bloom-covered bridge,
its braided crossed rungs. Looks me quiet & true.
“We are bound now, aren’t we?”
“Yes. And the help I pledged you. Yes, & always.”
The climb is slow, the rungs creak thoughtfully
on their wooden frame. I think of the many
Bridges I’ve known in the White Woods. Far from
this mysterious sand, that whoosh-whooshing Sea,
those strange heavy banks of clouds up there.
Can I bring my Brothers to those many places
I long ago told them about?
Can I return to that city I walked away from,
ask a peace with it I did not know I yearned?
Will we Brothers stay together ever on this time?
Will my King forgive me?
Now arrived the apex of the Bridge, & hardly behold
more fully the Beach of Many Worlds when,
as we help each other to stand up, we sense
something powerful approaching from the direction we came.
We look at each other, & crouch low again.
Stronger & stronger, compelling us lie flat atop
this Bridge, holding hands, while a powerful wave
rolls over us, & over us again, & still a third time.
I get a feeling, something more? & raise my head,
& look down the Beach as far as I can see.
And it looks like those waves, Wobbles? have closed the
distances, cleared them some away.
There is a campsite & surely that great Creature
is Abe the Ancient Sea Turtle! His kind eyes
nodding me to look on! look on!
I do & the distances draw me to a man
seated in a strange little vehicle, like a kind
of boat on wheels? And I see what I’ve not seen
for so long, those eyes, those deep blue eyes
of you, my King.
I remember your promise. This far moment
from that one. These clasp as our eyes clasp,
as our hearts clasp anew. I remember now, my King.
Everything between us falls away.
All that kept us apart, falls away.
As the Wobble diminishes, I remember.
I sit up.
“We have to go now. We have to get to him soon.”
vi. Their Arrival
We climb down off the Half Moon Bridge,
& set off toward Abe’s campsite, & my King.
But hurry as we might on this heavy colorful
sand, we do not near them soon as
seems we ought.
And the skies above grow dark. And darker.
And darker still.
Gate-Keeper now close to my side, &
he shares hold of his Tripod Camera
with me, as the darkness engulfs our
very sight of each other. Our voices fail us too,
coming out garbled & warped. We together
grasp the Tripod Camera, & stumble on.
Now sounds around us! Voices? Now we are
grasped, sure & warmly. Are these my Brothers?
We are urged to sit down on the sand, with these
others close to us. I then feel Gate-Keeper
raising his Tripod Camera enough to look
through its lens, wonder why in this dark.
I feel his hand cranking & cranking its handle.
Now he pulls me even closer to look through
the lens, as he cranks & cranks.
I gather my mind to this. Clear all away,
like that Wobble had. And now I see
faces through the lens as Gate-Keeper
pans it along.
Asoyadonna.
Francisco.
Odom.
Dreamwalker.
My King.
vii. Coda
We’ll find it where we lost it in the Cave
of the Beast. Find us, whatever form we are now.
Bond to it, however pain or pleasure.
Continue deeper in, letting none of us
fall alone again.
But it begins with you & me, my King.
Chance & endurance led us to each other again.
Now we unbank this debt.
Now we save the Many Worlds.