Week Fifty-Two: Audio.


Track for Week Fifty-Two is available for listening, concluding The Year of the Buffalo.

1 Hand

The Ninth Hand Regenerates


“Gnosis”
Is a result
Is the reconciliation
of thought to deed
Of this world to that world
Of yours to that outside
And that woody grove
outside to that of yours
To mine
To ours

The trees bending
The wheat ascending
A sweat lodge
A house of stone
and mud

and the gaping sky
all show
gnosis
all are
the perfect show

The Good Knowledge may not be counted
It may not be quantified
Except by those who diligently
Work
By those
Who make bread
From stone
And gold
From lead

and they
count in silence
grinning buffalo grins
with this kind of pure, bright honesty
that shames the wicked
the greedy – those Ugly Sorcerer Kings
who shroud themselves
in gild and gloss
and speak in jilted tongues
Work is their undoing
for
Work here is understood
Roughly
To mean labor
To mean sweat
You know

No wealth goes to heaven
But real gold does come
From it

For
Gnosis is born
When the symbols are stripped
Of all but the purest form
The angels all go wingless

And yet
They fly

*

The owl upon the bough
That hangs upside down
In the underneath, in the skies above
Hails from five horizons
One for each of the cardinal four
Plus one
His name is Hermetic
He heralds
the end of night
which is ignorance
and the hate-filled heart

But ignorance
Is the best place
To start

It

Says

the everwar and all that rage
are going to melt away
are melting away

The everwar and all that rage
can't disprove the sweetgrass sage
that brushes your horns
down

that brushes down
your horns

*

Here my right hand
is almost blue for the cold
My left all knucklebone
But upon that bone
A ring doth make it gold

Four horizons, yes
But more than four:
There’s five

And upon that starry point
A tower
Once trapped me
A tower does arise

But from the snow’s
Mournful glory
Out of the misty morn

Patience, patience, patience

Out of the dewy darkness
Yes, from shadow
She returns
From shade purple
There: she’s reborn

A patch of blood
A whiff of sage

Patience, patience, patience
I have lain with patience
Sat with such patience
so a diamond hole has burned
my skull
and split my forehead
so I am become again

Each man births himself
With knowledge
Each one is born
or dies
again

upon his choice
upon his deeds

is born or dies
again

a cycle
I don’t mind it
a cycle
she comes to bear
And bearing
Makes it worthwhile
The worth
Upon my shoulders
The earth
Turns

As I stare

Patience, patience, patience
Just one whispering breath
from her rose lips unsealed
Returns me to this place
That I have not left
For three days and three
Hungry
Sweating
Naked
Aware

Unable now to drum
Tired worn
For I have drummed
And drummed

till
Eyes squinted at the snow
Snowblind squinting
At the sun

till
Eyes stared down groves
of dying doughboy smiles
of graves popping from the ground
like tulips
like roses
like snowflakes fall
till I have taken the road
to Babylon
and back again
dripping want of wealth
and power
and lusting
after lust itself

Knowing this all has been
Inside my mind
In the past but born anew
From hunger, from rage
From thirst to this my age
I’ve grown afraid to move
for fear of the bones withal

No illusion now
This drummed up daughter
This maiden of the sun
There she stands
That liberating
Bloodied one

Whose face I shot
On a bet from the Sorcerer
Whose face I could not stand
To see

That countenance
Wide open
Not beautiful
for no beauty is so terrible
as the face of that which makes us
free

that is she
that is she

In sunlight
Is moonlight
In moonlight
Is the sun

I am that I might be undone
and in my undoing
give forth this lodge’s thrum

that’s rung in my ears
and hummed and hummed

Drum back the
Drum back the
Drum back the fallen ones

But to finish it
To be done with it
To sweat out the hardened
past
To reconcile
To heal the left hand
Is not easy

when one is too tired
to drum
and one’s bones too weary
to stand

from guilt, from a wounded hand
from cold, from a wounded hand
from

This thing has been the end of me
That much I know

She repeats
as she comes

Patience, patience, patience

I’m nearly unbelieving
Nearly but not so
Now she kneels to one knee
Now the other one
Her head above of me
She kisses my blasted hand

One kiss
for the beast’s eyes
One now for the beast’s great heart
A third then for the beast’s
Soft ears
And again for the beast’s
wise pelt
Then again
A fifth
For the beast’s
Will to stand
That will
To rise again

There are no killers
There are only boys
There are no victims
There are only the low
And lonely

And so I will sing
So I will sing
As you drum the bones
to war
that special war
Take your hands
Both of them
And drum

Drum back the dead bull down

There are no victims
There are no sins
There are only lovers
And lovers grinning
Cheshire grins
Of pacifism
Of wild wisdom
Burning out old sins

And of the lovers
The best are those that hold
Believe,
There are only whims

The rich are made for dying
as the poor are built to rise

There are no chieftains
There are no kings

and so I will sing
as you drum
I will sing

Drum back the earth, do plow
Drum back the dead bull down

*

Each kiss
Makes a finger
And each finger
Makes a grip
I am armed again
and hands
are made to work
and drum
and war
Ours the special war
That gives life

Gladly

That reconstitutes
Those alabaster
Bones
Like leavening
Does the dough

One at a time
They rise
Shake
First the skull
O’erturns
Then the spine
Like a snake
The hips
The thighs
The wide shoulder-bones
Arise
To the drumming sound

a bony Babylon
but one that speaks
a stony Byzantium
but one that lives right now

to the drumming sound

Shake these bones to life
We shall set them loose

Quickly now
As the noon draws nigh
Let’s release
the drummed back schism
those bones that once were shorn

Which point shall it go for war?
Against princes?
No
Against the east
The west
The south
The north?

No

That is not
his war

There is yet a fifth point
Occluded now by the long
Shadow of the sun
In which stands
That Sorcerer
who hides
from the raging bones

His hands outstretched
Conceited
He still now demands
That you bow
And bowing
your fealty show

The tower beyond him
Teeters

For now
We have released the bull

*

This glad war is fast won
For the Sorcerer
Is a shadow
The bull runs through
Heedless on its course
To the tower

Which truly
Must be
Its enemy

Its running is a roar
Its roaring
Shakes the earth
Shakes the snow
It runs toward the tower
And upon the very moment
Of the sun’s rising to the
Noon-Bright hour

Connects
Yet the tower
Does not fall
For the tower
And the bull

Hold

My eyes do see
Aright
No
Now my hands
Cross over my breast

The sweat
Drips down my face
As I emerge from the lodge
To stare

There is no tower
There

Just a sloping ridge
And the sun
At an angle
Seems to bend it

And upon the ridge and horizon
A white-clothed buffalo stands
As regal as any peacock billionaire
As wise as any sage
As great as any king
As sure as any man

At my left foot
A knife
At my right
A satchel
And a rose
is my heart
and my heart
is my life

When I cannot go on
It works
And makes me
Again and again

I rise

and I say

and I sing

remembering

An eye can be a prayer and
I am civilized; thou are beastly so
Thou are beastly eyed and lustful, lost
I shall come to know you thus
And from this we shall turn to blows

One hand takes the other
I raise them to the sky
Beyond, the buffalo’s breath
Rises, and in the air
Burns white hot
Smoky spirit from the beast’s
Great mouth

And the same rises
From mine

As I drum
I sing
and thrum

My heart's beating is a throne

Drum back the dead bull down
Drum back the dead bull
home





weekfiftytwo

Week Fifty-One: Audio.


Track for Week Fifty-One is available for listening.

2 Hands

The Eighth Hand is Shorn


“Moon”
is nothing
but news gone wrong
The television
Silent
The road
Undone

Eats you
Eats me
Eats everyone

All this sad everything
they offer up
Is a lie
Of brother’s bite
Of liberal maids that die
Or roses’ thorns
That cut the hand
and blind the eye

All thoughtless
Gigglings
Nothings
Not gifts for you
Or mine
These well-coiffed ladies on the news
These big-jawed men that laugh
In time

But here there is no room for lies
When the maiden rises up
and the diamond splits your mind

made
one

from
two
for
two
made
one
of
you

*

The owl that guides
and the dough white ones
The four kings that come to call
Are pitch night
and liars’ might
And the directions from which come
one and all

You citizens
Great golden marms
Sit and stand and scold

Olden days fade away
Left only are
We bold
Bright
Blue
Newborns grinning
Wise

Indigo child
fights
Wendigo-psychotic sun
fights
with calm song
and wild eyes

makes
Custer’s dying
Into history
Each and every day
we each and everyone

No victors
In Mankato
Swinging swinging haze
No markets
Up above

Just blood
And forgetfulness
And
Subtle
Silent
rage

terror
horror
blood
and

*

I am not
I
I am thy
Impression
And thyself
Unbound
Now
In the listening
Now
In the moment
Now
In the rhyme

I am that I was
All of it and more
A murderer
A saint
A whore

And more and more
But not dirt no
Nor just flesh and bone

Ascending upon
A ladder of bright-hot
Hands
Caressing

Upon these stairs
Of light

from one till one and none
and on and on I go
pressing my right hand
to the wounded one, my left

in work
I feel the bones
won’t sweat
I feel the bones

It is now I see again the stone and tower
exiler and shadow bare

The place where my father’s hand
was torn
which is nothing
but forgetting
and loss embittering

The past dies every day
therein

Enshrined immaculate
on the horizon there
Just on the horizon there

And it is now
I come to know

What must be done
What must and mote

At my feet,
the fruits of this work

And at my side
The skull
And a buffalo’s tired bones

I take to my fleshy drum
My drum I take and hold

As sweat drips down
and eyes grow tired

I strike and seed
and sew




Read the Lyric from the Beginning

weekfiftyone

Week Fifty: Audio.


Track for Week Fifty is available for listening.

3 Hands

The Seventh Hand Fights the Other

“Rage”
Is resolution
Is the three in one
It is what it is
Until it is no longer
one

That old tale
of brother biting
the other brother’s eyes
one two three
nipped out through
commerce now
through
excommunicating
thoughts

is dead now
unless we introduce
the daughter

the mother
the maid
that haunts

The spirit moves over the face of the water
And fire alone cannot baptize
The new saints anymore

For the new saints
Will be baptized
By air

*

The Sorcerer King
Is everything
All the peoples’ whims
All the peoples’ sins

Standing outside
the Sweat Lodge
with acrid smoke for breath
and a tongue like acid fire
rolling it rolls
speaking it is a legion
of murmurs
meaningless
profound

“Did you see the news today
Did you see the news?
Did you hear about the crash
Did you hear the crash?
Did you taste that new dark drink
Did you taste the drink?
Did you touch the plastic dolls
Did you touch the dolls?
Did you smell the Rockwell barn
Did you smell the burn?”

And on and on and one
A meaningless wild burning dissonance
A saturation, a glut, a font, and fountainhead
A rot a setting sun

And on and on and one

*

So then
It is
True

A man
Must make
War

Constant
Even now
Against
The mongerers
Congeners
All

Doughboy
Whiteness
Rough dough
Plastic
Blightness

Caroms
Into
Forever

Blasts
Apart
The
Night

Lo’, three hands
Make war

I my one
He his
And hers
From the
Ground

A bony
Finger

Pointed
Napoleonic
Conquers
America
Conquers
All

A man
Must make
War

Constant
Ever now
Against
The mongerers
Conjurer
Tall
He stands outside the door

And whispers
And screams
In one voice
In a thousand
Thousand fold

He lies

For he is the king of lies

His currency
Is the lie

His eyes
Despise
The light

He sees
With second sight

And he’s got me
Distracted

The war
Is a war
Of conscience

It is a war
For peace

For peace
Is not war

Neither war
Peace

No

A man
Must make
War

Constant
Even now
Against
The Sorcerer

Even with
One good
Hand

The other
Torn
From the root

The hand
A father
Drummed
Down
By pressures

Inevitable

Left hand
Right hand

Which then
Is the third?

I am
A hand
Myself

I
Rebellious
stand
And cover
Myself
With skin

Become
That Other Thing

That drummed down
Whispering

That inside Animal
That internal King

To step forth
To make a war
Of conscience

To make a war
With patience

To make a war
With silence

To loom
At the gate
Of my inner life

And standing there I will
Compete
Focus

I will drum out
The murmuring horde
And move to the singular
Revelation

That this saltsweat tear
Running down my brow

Is a locus
Of the all

Is a locus
Of the all

Is a locus
Of the all







weekfifty

Week Forty-Nine: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Nine is available for listening.

4 Hands

The Sixth Hand Makes a Fist

“Ground”
Is what you make of it
Earthen or otherwise
It’s all the same
To the “King”

Emperor Lord
Charlatan
Cuts cloth with a wink
and eats your fingers
on a whim

A death to liars
A death to saints
We are each
Superbly human

*

Ray Lahoon
Is just the name
Of a man with a diamond eye
And the diamond is suffering
That cuts one’s head in twain

There is one creator God
And he goes without a name
He sits here now
In this lodge
And meditates upon loss
and rebirth
and flames
- omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, this God’s true being and real nature are ineffable and beyond direct comprehension, although powerful traces exist both in and around us in the world, which is nothing less than the great book of this living God: as God is omniscient, It knows our experience; as God is omnipresent, It exists inside each of us; and as God is omnipotent, It acts through us. Our experience in this life is but one of many potential experiences, and surely neither the first nor the last of our beings.

Through work it is possible to know real aspects of God in this lifetime. This work of knowing God may be achieved through practice, which is Sweat.

*

Oh Children Mine!
Oh Children Thine!
We are all each queens and kings
Sublime

Take it, grip it, hold it, throw it
And make a castle from a sea of bones
As sweltering heat Dakota sun
Shines down upon you
And the rains wash away your sins

You make a fist,
for the water to pour down
You own this city!
You are this town!

There is nothing left to the sage now
But soft injustice and the ongoing thrum
of the liars’ history
made real by repetition
That chalky lie you lick
And praise

Until the ground itself
Slips away
And the earth
Is flattened
Or may as well be

Upon a flat earth
We cannot walk

And I, remorseful,
Stand and watch my other hand
Squeeze the trigger again
And again and again
Into the face of that girl
That daughter
Of the Emperor
That sweet Maid

Liberty

Oh you Children do not know
Neither do you see!

Those glutted Dutch lords turned modern ways
Stand like tiny kings
Rex Miniscua
Stand they in the field
As you plant tulips on your grave
These grow
From the blood of men
From children’s blood
Into a tower
So high above the slaves

All this to the soundless
Hum of money
Changing hands
Without tune
Neither ripple nor wave

And the flowers bend
One at a time
Until their stems do break

Leaving only
The too-high tower

And the workmen’s graves

And the highway
Oh the highway
Over a flat earth
Going nowhere
Going west
Which is dying
Or east
Which is to be enslaved

Unless one is well prepared
To war
Or…
- It is true that the most destructive idea in the history of humankind has not been, as often claimed, religion or even the notion of the nation-state. Rather, it is the idea of an implicit social hierarchy based on filial or racial ties, of a “privileged class” whose privilege self-enforces and strengthens existing channels of power and authority. All men are created equal, and it is by merit, not heredity or color or gender or creed professed, that a person must come to lead. Further, once this meritocracy pushes one to leadership, this leader must not be given carte blanche and needs to be checked by both the public and its elected officials.

It is true also that man, being charged and blessed to enter life requiring a mother’s care and the bonds of family, is a social and political creature.

And finally, it is the work of the enlightened citizen and politician to ensure that the weak are not oppressed by the strong and that the inalienable rights of each are protected against even the most well-wishing despot or tyrant, company or foreign power, individual or collective.

The public is a wizard
and a piebald sorcerer
and so falls for wizard’s tricks
and so falls hard

Lahoon
The Rebel Bone
drinks a glass
Of water
That he might sweat more

And be purified
before the coming of the day’s deepest hour
and the Sweat’s end
in murder
in sacrifice
no blame

I am thirsty
but thirst is not
my name




weekfortynine

Week Forty-Eight: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Eight is available for listening.

5 Hands

The Fifth Hand Baptizes

“Heat”
is as cold as glistening
white-hot stars
burning your retinas
out

from proximity
they burn
if you roll close enough
to them

What is beautiful
Destroys us
For what is beautiful
Is strong

*

The judge
is not named Gabriel

Gabriel is not the judge

The judge is I
Staring

The judge is thou
Revealed

Ahoo
The Caretaker
Ahoo
The Judge
Ahoo
Lahoon
The blood

*

Black dog soldier
Red dog soldier

Stand like pillars
Two

Hot stones in hands
They tend the fire
And heat the stones

Their hands are ancient hands

Revealed metal
You throw away
The ring from the good
One hand

I dip my head and bow out
To pray

The only good thing in this is connection
To the other
And that
Is all around you

It’s true then that the only pain
Is disconnection
From this other

That which is
All around you

Let the rain come down
And the blood, pulsing
Drown out all sounds

I pray
But no

No disconnection

A hand
To forehead
With water
For I am now
Not yet sweating

It rolls down
Soft
As a teardrop

Your daughter’s hand
Cut
It is your own

Your father’s hand
Torn from bone
It is your own

Thinking on this,
I step inside

Thinking on this,
I go alone





weekfortyeight

Week Forty-Seven: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Seven is available for listening.

6 Hands

The Fourth Hand Caresses

“Gold”
never glistens
unless you circle
the sun

With a flash of light
Everything emanates
From this
This one

Secrecy
Hidden in the open
Upon the plain
Inside the heart

*

The bird stares down
From the woody copse
His left eye
The sun

His right
The other one

His head twists
Round
And stares
At the stump
That was
The hand
of the descending
bones

a man and bull
joined
weirdly

*

Sitting there
In the sweating lodge
Is the man I have sought

I Lahoon
A bag of bones
Prisoner
Dissenter
My right hand gone

I see his left is shorn

Strange that we should mirror
Even in memory
Nothing is clear

And there he sits
With the flap undone
A blast of smoke above him
And below him the cold hard ground

There to his side
The skull I recall
A bone as old as God
A buffalo’s
Skull
No flesh now
All bone

Upon which
Blood was spent
Of my Beloved
Wasted,
Homeless blood

A hand as long as horizon
Eyes as dark as sleep
Left hand
Trigger finger
Torn from knuckles
And white knobs revealed
Beneath

Yea’ he is my enemy
But here no malice
Remains

We are the same
We are the same

His hand caresses
The stone-hard bone
Again and again it moves
With slowburned delicious
Grace
Traces he upon the bone
His name

in
wet, with sweat
not tears
with sweat
not blood
writes he

Across the day
And through the years

Speaks he

He’s whispering my name
I’m whispering his

We are the same
We are the same

Brothers
With two eyes
Between
And three
In twain

Lahoon
Rebel Bone

is the name





weekfortyseven

Week Forty-Six: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Six is available for listening.

7 Hands

The Third Hand Strikes

Thirst”
Jabs at the tongue
Of this one

In a moment
A throat is cut
Like a bird cuts
The sky

Chemtrails
And a cloud parts
Dropping rain
Raining blood

*

She is the Sister
with the swollen eye
She is bleeding
And her blood flows blue
And bright

She arches, bends
Billows
And gives birth
To death

She is the night sky
New won

*

Between the instance of my willing it so
And the happening itself
There falls the blade
Slow, slower than the seasons change
One, two, three, and four

A drumbeat down below

Between the instance and the happening
One must will it so

Yet still I cut
And won’t be stopped
The blade drops
Fast I strike
The memory of it all
Of Black Maria
Lahoon, swoon Sorceror
And the boon of Bone

Informs, nay, is the striking

And it is good that it is so

The knife goes
The clouds burst
The sky parts

Darkens – I pray for the rain to come
But none does, though the sky
is dark as pitch

and down below
in a small temple made
of flesh and stone

there sits the villain
smugly so

under grayblack sky

It occurs to me now
In this moment
Floating about the sweating lodge
Where sits this man and bone
(Skullbone – the memory of murder)
That this is a lesson
And I am here to learn

And between this occurrence
And my descent, a voice
Speaks inside my mind

With clarity
Crystalline

Before the bones will walk
West over the horizon there
You must lay up your hopes
To eternity

And having done
Despair

Yet beyond despair
something

will undo
the knife

and sew
the tear

will lay the worm to ground
and shake the earthen lair

I listen closely
And I listen long
And I listen
Repeatedly
To the words
I listen on

And abruptly find
As I crash down
To red earth

This voice
Is mine

That voice
Is mine

That voice
And song

Disappear
Into the black clouds
beyond





weekfortysix

Week Forty-Five: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Five is available for listening.

8 Hands

The Second Hand Grasps

“Seconds”
pass as our lives
die away

Every day
Is human sacrifice
As hours pass
Is human sacrifice
As lives are laid up

For nothing
For illusions
For a lie

*

He is the Emperor
With the many hands
He is sweating
And his sweat shall never end

He reclines, rests
Crests, wanes
In a Lodge of Flesh

He is the moon and sun
Undone

*

There upon the total sky
a great altar wide stands
bright – light
eats light eats light
and makes a tabernacle

delight of all delights

the tabernaculum
bleeds white brightness
bleeds white hot
lovely light

Laymen all we down below
split quaternity, everything
here down below
split four times and four times
four

is not what it seems here
down below

Ludibrium
A mockery and a sport
It’s true yes
Spectacular theatrical
Sporting fun
All but for the blood
Which cannot lie
Nor would could it do
And this
My one hand reaching
Is true too

As too as that man is real
He there
Who may have killed the Diamond Girl
There across the way
Sweating, with his
Cloth-made crown

There he sweats
So near so far
Shall I rouse him?

Not yet
For he has not seen me
And surprise now is
all

I count
One
Two

The heartbeat
Is a drum
I hear
alone

I rise, my feet light and free,
And look for the happy blade
above

Hejana Nethai
I go but do not go

It is so, for
I am wishful
But no longer shy
Have come a long way to stare
at this
star-gorged
this split and bright darkened sky
So weirdly right
That it should be
Now above
Now below
The whole of me

So I will stare
And staring
Assuredly arise
to once again become
and becoming once more be

Eight yards hence
Now low
Arched angle
Low there, the suite
and sage

A wolf nearby
But not

(The wolf makes its home
in a den of wood and stone
hard born, hard it will die

There are few wolves
In North Dakota here
but those that glow blue
are here and everywhere)

And arched backwards
Supine near to split
There, sacrificial
Lies the Maid as she once was
There upon the tabernaculum
And there upon the sky
A sheet of light breaks out
A blade across the sky
A bolt of light, and lightning
Bolt

And knife

Aloft, I reach out
And one
Two three four five
Pluck it from the air
Pluck forth that wolf’s tooth of light

And hold it
Above her belly

For a second
For a second

For a time
I hold it
There
So high





weekfortyfive

Week Forty-Four: Audio.


Track for Week Forty-Four is available for listening.

9 Hands

The First Hand Reaches

Civilization”
is a wound
still bleeding

Pregnant
She gives birth
Eternally

even as she bleeds

*

You are the Sorcerer
With the many hands
He is Rebellious
and rebellion ever stands

or crouches, waiting
sweating, bleeding
in a Lodge of Flesh

for the raging dawn

Waiting
for the light to come

*

See now in the distance
Sorcerer ye’
nine yards away
a small sacred mound of flesh
and wood
with smoke rising up
subliminally

There crouches
Face down
In the doorway
That flap of skin
A man who sweats
And sweats
And bleeds

Reflecting he
On sin

Now one step closer
One step toward him
Is a start
But not enough

Frozen then
unmoving

From his crouched pose
He raises a hand
The sky parts, black
buffalo skin sliced
from flesh and bone
and laid out over heaven’s
brow

He raises a finger
The earth shakes
And we shake

His left hand was in the dirt
Sodden, drummed down earth

He has lifted that hand
And pointed it to the sky

Now he moves his hand
And points to his right, open eye

From still nothing:
this

From his lips
this:

*

Hear then now of the battle
between the eagle and the condor
That of the Bone and the Sorcerer
Reborn with each passing line

Of 9 hands, attractive, and one
from the marrow shorn

Of slavery ancient, wickedness
overflowing throughout the land

where the homeless burn down
your homes

Of a war recent won
and babes hung by boughs
nailed there to die alone

squirming as they go

Oh woe
They are hanging the native men
Oh woe
This land belongs
to none

This human sacrifice
Sacrificial bones
From scaffolds fall
one to one to one
and the shit drips down
on newfound Christian soil

Oh woes
Of a great long tribal drumming
Upright hands, hands to the sky
Rebellious hearts can never die
And loyalty
Is paid in blood

Rivers flood til symbols drown
The upside: small, sour towns
built red upon the lie

Til comes a channeler
whose right hand withers dry

Against the coming tied
Against the bones
piled to the sky
he asks:

Who was the Diamond Maid?
And did she really die?

Who was the firstborn son?
And where now does he lie?

His asking
Splits the sky

His asking

Splits the sky