�Herd� by RedHawk RedHawk, Like a triptych, this poem � �Herd� � seems to complete the three that began with �Music� and �Prophet�. Actually, it only now occurs to me that rather than incorporating some natural object upon which or through which to ponder this entire series has, rather, tricked me into being or becoming the object or the door if you will. The poet has, in utilizing a seemingly barren architectural landscape of �self� and �thought� and �mind�, penetrated the human mass (or mass, mater, in general � making human a mythical qualification of mass rather than an arrogant appropriation of It, Mother, Sheman, Human, Spirit); the poet has penetrated the human mass, virtually objectless as it really is save for the object of CONNECTION and CONSCIOUSNESS and SYMBOL. Not unlike the previous two poems, prayers, incantations, oratorios what have you, the third, �Herd�, is still very distinct in its or Her approach to, now, the human object, cosmic seed as it is for the evolution of language, logos as a whole, the human object (or psychopathology) and its counterpoint, death, or more precisely, mortality � �My greatest herd of horses died,� �Spinning in existence for us to survive.� I have intentionally transposed the order of the first two lines to hilite the practiced ambiguity in tense, object, time and, finally, meaning � much like life when removed from familiar objects of contemplation but for our Self. There is no self here, though, but rather �my greatest herd of horses.� The poet, or shaman, or human, is really challenging me here, really making me work for this, or re-work that work we are all doing equally � learning how to speak about our selves. With any great experience, be it a sunset, a kiss or a fine work of song of life and love and rite, one is thrust into the now along a path one has never truly diverged from, guided as we all are by the ineffable light of meaning, mystery, motion, and existence. This may sound obscure, which it is if divorced from an intention close to the will of body � so close in fact that one can only know it by being its lover. Such to me is the supernature (the Nature) of ritual and the mortal life not so much divorced from eternal meaning as betrothed to IT; IT which craves, LIKE us, recognition and performance and play. To this intent which we vulgarize as human will and deify as fate or mortality; which we devote to destiny and relegate to romance; all is sacral is, frankly, human. To be fully human is to be fully divine � the seed linguistic program for the unfoldment of cosmic consciousness. Always? Needs be. Always wandering? As a mater of course and the matter, mother, mass (�dense self�) of our path (and the play of knowledge that is us, way and walk, dance and fay � pathology), which we, ironically (in spirit/pathology/biology), share with all other things and hues, cries and creations; our path to now in the infinite undulating innocent fields of eternity � spirit in visible, in symbol word and sound � in Being, Self, Consciousness, all in a here which is forever and for Ever elsewhere - Be NoW Here Feel the need Voice the desire Believe in the voice Orange In this field, fear and fate harken to instances ambient, instances of creation with and by the whole herstory of here; creation and relation that literally mirror all time and space wherein and all about (in breath figurative and literal) p�art is is whole. Hence, �the white man�s cry� is now no longer an anthropomorphic lament but a human animal song, a gutteral liturgy to the impossibility of either death or meaninglessness. The earth and body, removed from all familiars (stripped �from all effectual aid� <P.B. Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty>), is not concealed as we might guess but consummately revealed (�tis a consummation devoutly to be wished � to die, to sleep / To sleep perchance to dream / And in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil / Must give us pause / There�s the respect that makes calamity of so long life � Hamlet sc III act ii, William Shakespeare); consummately revealed in ITS concealment, a poetic magic reminiscent of Sophoclean drama, the setting of one mask only to dawn another, for we do in deed in the very act (or motion) of being Here (He Her Here in Reality/ Spirit), resurrect one another in the eternal light of cosmic consciousness, rebirth, Earth, here and elsewhere in a polity whose high court is symbol and mystery, in a field where imagination is all powerful and as powerfully democratic. �Karma chamelions Sucked and soothed the blood of saints And Sin Sat throned Aurora flying to our aid� The Dark Tower � Jg �Stripped from my sight / They carefully drifted away.� Are the herd really stripped from sight or is this an indication of a much greater herd of horses, that is, vision-body(s)? They do, we read, �carefully� drift away. So we see an immediate contrast of personal and collective (or divine ) will � not to mention the dream body and its human antecedent! �Spinning in existence for us to survive / My greatest herd of horses died.� �Spinning� �for us to survive� as we are here surviving now denotes present tense and yet the horses, we read, �died�. This is sheer magic, tragic irony, a temporal causal spiral loop in consciousness and word, music and form and being, further emphasizing vis a vis, our very own body, that we are the herd. Or, rather, is life (and death) magical? Are dying and surviving similar? And where does that � death life light re-birth � happen? In music in person (or object) and prophet (or Self) and, now, then and here everafter, in �herd�, together in will, distinct in word, this language, this star solar tongue, this conversation of all creation, one cry to another, one time or all time and place to each other, a divine play not of the acquisition of new knowledge or even eternal life but of what we, the heard of horse, already know by the imminent magic of wills forever betwixt to one another bound in the primeval creative motion ever present, by life, by being and by death � how to remember to collect and steer everything, every happening, spirit to body to spirit to one another living in the very breath of symbolic consciousness, in Person Divine you and me, divinity no less and evermore, �like killers in the ocean� blinking in and out of pure undifferentiated spirit joy to the beat of Her Heart, Her Body, the heart of Earth we share as intimately as the space between two words, two lovers, two people, or two herds � a space that �travels in distances� and another �channeling each other with their tones and pulses� each the rhythmic pulse of Creation. To be human is to be together with � not separate from � consummately individual and consummately connected across the infinite eternal architecture of energy, feeling and sound and color and the will to be from that space where all life and death and time and dream converse, from love to love, mystery and divine romance, Eve in here, Eve in now. We are the myths; the moment, our Child. We are the herd, �Herding together in ease of the current� by the will of Her vision that ignites stars and opens the doors of perception.. Shaman. Human. Faerie. God. Animal Brother and Sister. Blessed Be Born Again and Again and Again� I wonder sometimes what exactly inspires a poem. It is simultaneously physical, co-creative, and eternal; I guess it's just a harmony, a harmony we should be more surprised that we don't see it everywhere than that we happen to see it one place or another. I've heard it said that the real magic of life is the visible more than the invisible. I think there's a lot to that, a lot of humour and love, like that which I would love to believe exists in the dreamtime, the middle world of faeries and wonder and magic, Jim The Land of the MidNight Sun In the land of the MidNight Sun Close Or far away She who finds the golden purse Inside the monumental cave Rules with the public spirit And when the rulers turn to faerie dust The child hero climbs the throne Aurora flying to our home What is Is already That witch exits Represented By that which exists not In light that yonder breaks With horse of North and South and East and West Close Or Far; A Way - Fay In the land of the MidNight Sun. *** This day and age we're living in Gives cause for apprehension With speed and new invention And things like fourth dimension Yet we get a trifle weary With Mr. Einstein's theory So we must get down to earth at times Relax relieve the tension And no matter what the progress Or what may yet be proved The simple facts of life are such They cannot be removed You must remember this A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh The fundamental things apply As time goes by And when two lovers woo They still say, "I love you" On that you can rely No matter what the future brings As time goes by Moonlight and love songs Never out of date Hearts full of passion Jealousy and hate Woman needs man And man must have his mate That no one can deny Well, it's still the same old story A fight for love and glory A case of do or die The world will always welcome lovers As time goes by Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers As time goes by As Time Goes By... Lyrics and Music by Herman Hupfeld; � 1931 Warner Bros. Music Corp., ASCAP
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