Sacred Contracts XXIX: Ancient Telegraphy

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.  
~