THE GREAT ONES
We make our own monsters,
Feed them and sustain.
Dark mirrors
That crush, embitter,
Defining right,
Ripping nerve from muscle
Leaving insensate force
To rule and chain.
Their names
Will live forever
While the quietly good
Dissolve back
As if never.
Their rise is ever
Our failure.
A choice,
A strong dream
Promulgated, given,
Over-ruling a more
Delicate path.
(The willows with their wicks of flame,
The hollow, tumbling call of the owl,
The sky’s gentle rain, fingertip chrism.
The hearth cracks as it cools).
The demons we have cast out,
Those we despised and disowned,
They rage free now, running the world.
Exultant, sure, unconstrained,
They know the fertile, dark earth,
They taste the mellow, crumbled humus,
The undigested decay of hopes,
The ephemeral, hesitant prayers
Laced through with doubts.
Wherever they step,
There is the cooling shadow
Of their triumph, the withering
Of breath, the tunnelling of sight.
(On the still air of morning, dew and mist,
A wood pigeon sails, glides, broad-keeled,
Down to its new nest, its new mate.)
Fire of mind spits and blusters,
Fire fanned and racing, consuming
To continue, eating itself, moving on.
Ashes, dust, smoulder, we eat all, move on.
A bitter combustion lacking all restraint,
Lost in itself, howling, ever hungry.
(The six lokas gently dance,
A play of blossoms, syncopated motion.
Gentle rattle, the bone ornaments,
As rainbow dakinis sway cloudwards.)
The rebels refuse to see any ineffable now.
Enough, they think: a trick that breeds complacency.
The will of Heaven: a slave chain.
Deceit they know: deceit they expect in all.
Their flowers that flourish are the bloom of pain,
The mistaken identity, the immortal secret.
Inchoate, needing all, it grows in secret,
Displacing order with hierarchy,
Growing its own executioner.
These are the Great Ones,
The Immortals, draped in gore.
Do not turn away nor shudder.
Only a clear morning gaze will cool them.
Only a tear-fall of bright dew will wash.
Refuse the spark to fury and fight.
Refuse the glory, refuse the judgement.
Our medicine. What shall be our medicine?
Measured poisons, a taste of death,
A return, a clearing of spaces,
An emptying, an unwinding,
A gesture of removing fear,
A small laughter, a shrug.
What shall be our medicine,
What our poison?
Stillness is an action.
Silence an answer.
No choice, still a choice.
Still the choice.
Remain,
Unhindered.
The roaring fires extinguish themselves,
A transmigration of souls.
**
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