Sacred Contracts XXIX: Ancient Telegraphy 

I. 
When you scale down   
that mountain’s side   
your heart crisply bathed   
but muscles limp in ache -   
it's the small things you appreciate   
the natural things that matter.   
   
Everything else is fake.   
   
The falsity of buildings depreciating   
concrete buckling from earthen force   
all are constructs of human weakness   
providing an illusion of security.   
Four hard walls and a roof   
power lines, I-phones, cables   
doors, windows, locks   
two cars in the garage.   
   
Materialism caulking the cracks   
to feel what's missing in the heart -   
Except no matter how much cash   
is pumped into the ventricles   
it loosens from the organic sinew   
it tried desperately to adhere to -   
We freeze from back-drafts of emptiness.   
And there's this yearning, longing   
through bloodlines for something   
we can't explain in absence   
of what’s left behind.   
   
II.   
But up here on this mountain   
there are no windows or doors –   
only four winds of Life:     
Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.   
And upon this dirt is history   
a remnant of ancestry   
an ancient communiqué   
fire bowl of a "Warriors Path"   
symbolizing transformation   
Burning wood altering   
tangible form to ash -   
ash to dust -   
smoke to nothingness -   
nothingness to floating messages   
black signals of rising particles -   
history returning to her deep origins   
A daguerreotype of preservation   
compressed tintype of memory   
These plumed symbols rising   
without designated meaning   
lest intercepted by the enemy.   
   
Are your eyes lifted unto the hills   
from whence cometh your help-   
Do you translate the rising sequence   
decipher hieroglyphic meaning.   
   
III.   
Intuition is as moistly dark   
as this mountain's heart   
under all this layered rock   
perceived infallible   
except by a stick of dynamite   
and gas-powered bulldozer.   
   
Some things are meant to sustain   
naturally - that patch of grass   
stretching back to Life   
as though its spine was unbroken   
carrying the weight of my searching.   
The same with buildings -   
Nature will reclaim   
her own after humanity.   
   
So they'll level this mountain   
with machines for prosperity   
construct buildings for safety   
that won't last mere decades   
trench the water with pipelines.   
   
But what they can't destroy   
remains wedged into the Earth   
as a Dryad Spirit in a forest   
raising its pulpy voice   
through kindred roots   
justice from the fire   
the whittled bow of its trunk   
boned arrowhead   
of animal inhabitants   
the Tribal Elders lodged in sweat   
the buffalo kill – respected offering   
the Peace Pipe between brothers.   
   
And you know what, they can't   
destroy you and me either   
despite your misplaced trust   
in a shaman ciphering resources   
through the partners you choose –   
all those hypnotizing siren songs   
producing no more than broken wood   
against serrated jaws of rock.   
O! how you must hope   
at least one would survive   
the crash, her half-naked body   
tangled amid hair and seaweed     
skin of olive branch curled   
across the low tide beach   
a washed-up conch waiting   
to be found that you'd finally   
know the Love you've searched.   
O! That you could hear the song   
of eternity against her breasts   
each night you dream in rest.   
   
Jealousy has transformed   
to compassion, my Dearest   
for the sake of happiness.   
   
IV.   
I'll tell you what a rock is   
and it's not me or my flesh.   
And I want to scream:   
"Don't you dare give up;   
don't you dare quit or   
'Look for me in the last fall   
colors of Autumn leaves   
When all you remember   
is a desperate kiss goodbye.'"   
But I can't. Even now,   
in what tiny amount   
of portal'd time is left   
between us:   
Ten minutes.   
Five. Two.   
None.   
   
So I'll wait, maybe wish   
that you'll remember me 
or maybe that I remember you   
or us each other 
come two harvest moons   
dangling heavy   
as ripened oranges   
floating in their own   
darkened juice –   
And landing gear   
skidding black across   
the runway's tarmac   
smoking contrails behind   
because sometimes to survive   
you must trade Water for Air -   
   
Then we shall touch knowledge   
we've sought - proof the taste   
of the only Universal Truth that exists:   
Love that's survived war and death.   
 

~

October 2016

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