Into the Undersky

You think there would be
But there is none, no
There is no crash
Through briar thorns
And crowned boughs
No sound of trees falling
Nor the sound of a Rebel-Bone
Hitting ground
Hitting stone

The light swallows the sound
And the silence is a roar
The air swallows the light
And I
I breathe
And falling
soar

The blue is gone
and green now
needs
attention
loving
green and grays
dirty each
and dirtied: clean
sweet-smelling earth
woodlands
turf
sod untried
by mannish feet
earth unplowed
by human eyes
Nor now shall be
For I
Am something new
Inhuman – true
Rara avis!
I am something
New
Not red
Nor gold
Nor blue too
No such shades or hues
For
I
Am
Something
New
And a thing
Is its verb
Correspondent
New,
I make new
New,
I renew
Everything
My hands touch
Everything
My eyes couch
All
Is born
Like the calf
From mother’s womb
As the twin seed
Splits
devours her fruit
So I descend aloft
and, descending, bloom

There is the Undersky!
Beneath my feet!
Parallel!
Incomplete!

Where flying feels like falling
There! There it is!

Where lying down
On grass
O’er legs
Happens
There! There it is!

When traipsing beats compound
Your whims
And set you
Aloft down low
There too it is!
There too I go!

Where north
Is south
And south
Is north
There I shall remain.

Where east
is west
the west
a test
There on wings I’m borne.

All eyes and feathers
Awash in rains from storm
All wings and sinews’ beats
I chase now
That sacred Stone

Where blue is red
And red is blue
And yellow gold
A silver hue

Where owls hoot
And woodsman moot

There is the sacred plow:
The moment
The holy
Ever-present now

There I shall go
and have removed
this mirror shard
from between my brows
by a surgeon
of great repute

What a man was he
That woodsman wise
Who sailed down
To the sky

What a man he was
That woodsman mine
Who sang
And sang
And cried

Hejana he said
Hejana nethai

It means “I go
and do not go”

In that woodland speech

He goes
And does not go

What silence in that
What woody grace
In him as he spoke
His words erupting
from sunburned face

I go – and do not go
Implies
I stay – and do not
remain
Implies
A cosmogony
A worldwide
Trace

And grace
Paradoxical
Replacing
The distaste
For petty truths
And the logic
Of pale tyrants
In cloistered rooms
Who imagine they can
Corner
The soul

And instead
We witness visions
Of the world turned within
Of hands holding
A globe
And a globe holding
The hands
And again
And again
It blooms
How it blooms

Paradoxical
A bird is
A man
A man is
A bird
And staying
The man leaves
Leaving
He remains

And this goes unlearned
Cloistered away
By words: economy,
rigor, reason –
are all ugly
when they kill
one’s very worth
and stop
one from giving life
to that which one must
birth:

The Stone

And while I say it
And feel it
And name it
I understand it not

Nor know I that I ought!

Nethana hejai
“From nothing
I have arrived.”

And its meaning
eludes, obfuscated
it hides, occluded
by the woods
and the blood now
blue not red
red not blue
all shades
all hues
as pitch as blackened puce
streaking down in my eyes
from cuts
won from the ascending
down toward the patchwork
earth

Surely all that is hidden
Must be lies

Surely the truth
Seeks the light

With myself I fight
And fighting I bite
and bite and bite

As surely as I crash through
Oak and pine
And bleed into the earth

As surely as I plummet,
downright and reverse supine
and careen toward stone and turf

quick : losing : sight
quick: no more: upright

and I swear
I swear I hear
a drumming
intensified
a drumming
of bones
in flight

But it can't be
There's no one here
but me

falling
flying
flying
upright

Right now
With ferocious lip
The earth takes me inside
and
all is darkness
all is night
all is darkness
all is night

falling
flying
falling
upright

Read the Lyric from the Beginning