Maiden Progress
"Arise, my Captain; to the fair city we go..."
I
Come with me, friend, around the coming bend
Which holds no road or sidewalk in an end
Unto itself at its beginning.
Come with me, my friend; come and take it in:
The faded brick that lacks the years that pass,
Where to begin to maybe fit it in;
Between the ticks and tacks
Among the bric-a-brac
Down by the river stretching history thin;
Breathe it in, my friend; breathe, and take it in...
Come with me, and now to begin the letter!
Take note: the news has never spread the better
To the street where the storefronts never close
And concrete never creaks under the weight
Of silver dollars; open wide the gate
For smooth transitions as the trumpet blows,
Heralding in the monarch of the age:
A finer sex than we, and richer wage
Rewarded to the martyrs of her cause
And knighted by her blade, sharp as it was
In the name
Come with me, where the cracks are made by moles,
Not so by time and sweet erosion,
And the snakes within their holes
Set off the rhyme in deeper motion
To disrupt the predetermined grooves
For gravel that is wedged within our shoes
And, looking for the sledgehammer, find glue;
To then insist, "I would prefer not to" -
Oh, don’t you understand?
Why, this is how it is:
A lily and a daffodil
Adorn the arch of stone;
The picture frame is empty still;
A cobweb hangs alone.
And while the gold may tinkle more
Than iron steeple bells,
The candleman caresses flame
For all the saints to tell
In the name of
And come now, to the corners of the street
Where in the lamplight spirits that you meet
Dance by and flicker once, then twice again
Before the leerie makes his rounds at ten
And ushers on the path beneath our feet;
And hush: the man in flesh to comprehend.
See where he goes: the conclave of the soul,
Where who will win
Is up for raucous and intense debate.
The tougher skin
Will wear like hide rain-soaked atop the knoll
Where mind met sin
And in the narthex chose the narrow gate
To enter in
The name of
Maiden Progress.
II
I digress:
A vision of her light
Fractals as her skirtails trail over the sea;
An afternoon delight
Of Faust and lavender coffee,
All served with a smile
And a sparkling eye that, all the while
Craved more a honey green tea
In the cool of an evening summer night.
"Take the adjustment in stride", despite
The disposition to keep walking
And take a metered mile
Within the inch of an infantile
Desktop setup in the free
World of Power, Might, and Right -
"It must be much more simple to be blind,"
She dreams aloud to any mastermind
Set squarely on the atrophy: to find
The most efficient way to leave behind
The medicine that troubles her.
Too reticent - another first -
It never seemed so feasible before,
Tucked deep within her little bedside drawer
Among her memories, too tight a score
And filled with famine, pestilence, and war,
Opened once more to touch and stir
What can be made right, loving, firm.
She wakes...
She blinks...
She rolls across the bed
To her little bedside drawer
To clear the annals of history
And her head.
And as she writes,
A noted glance, a flourishing of fingers
Moving to the next available task
As softly as the clinging of the wind
Spotted on the leaves, where it lingers
Without needing to ask.
No petal of the rose escapes her eye
Or lapses past her ear, as notes of a singer
Whose memory combs the past
While plucking future fruits from the brink
Of waking hours to bring her
Message and intention to the sacred here and now,
Displayed in all the twinklings of her face,
Held gingerly, yet solidly in place
Within the palms of perspective and time
And in the shelter of a breathless gaze
On which you can borrow
For all the life and limb of yesterdays,
Todays, the afternoons, tomorrows,
To make it all right.
And as she writes…
III
"Arise, my Captain; to the fair city we go..."
The pageboy rushed into the canvas tent,
Arousing from the cognizance of maps
The officers encircled round a table
In preparation for the day’s advance.
The click of boots among the fallen stones
Signaled the sudden rising of the men
In flaming red, but tattered, uniforms,
The dust of evenings past still clinging fast
Beneath their fringes. There, the Captain stood,
Intent among the men at arms; yet still
Another notion brewing in the air
Surprised the pageboy, forcing him to stand
In rapt attention: simple, quiet calm
Colored the glint within the careful eye
Of one who has perspective of it all.
"Come, boy," the Captain said, "and take a long look
At what the fates would have in store for our hand."
Presenting all the movements of the troops,
The cavalry, the bows, the light brigade,
And though a child may pattern out the steps,
The pageboy could see nothing making sense
To his pure, uninitiated mind.
"Is this it?" he exclaimed. "That's all it is?" -
In this, he found himself too stunned to speak -
"My eloquence is lost among the folds
Of paper dreams - or was it ever mine?
I can recall my daydreams as a child,
Where my small energies were made to be
A servant of the histories of war,
A soldier, then a scout, a general,
And finally a god above it all,
The tides of history turning in my palm,
Surprising and waylaying caravans
Meant for a resupply, a charge of steel
And blood and sweat and raw adrenaline
In hopes of conquest or, and better still,
If finally a god above it all,
A seat among the presence of the great -
So finally a god above it all -
But was it ever mine? When I survey
Your prophecies and well-worn battle plans,
It's lost upon me, suddenly and swift
Like clenching tides or grasping at the wind,
Never to be held or be seen again -
And what I wouldn't give to now defy
The very fabric of the universe
And pickpocket the treasures of the book
That is already written then to gain
The knowledge, nay, the wisdom of an age,
The Kingdom never meant for mortal men,
Of oft before and yet so far away..."
His words trailed off, and silence filled the room.
Nobody moved or stirred, except the one -
The Captain turned and, reversing his step,
Began to pace, his hands behind his back
And chin pressed downward on his heavy chest.
His eyes were neither blinking nor skittish,
And yet he was stupendously alert.
When just a moment passed without a breath,
The Captain straightened, looked into the eyes
Of the bewildered pageboy, and he spoke,
As clear as morning dew glints in the sun -
"You see, men, this is such the warrior.
This is the pinnacle, the age of old
And what will bring the divine to the new:
The Kingdom never meant for mortal men…
And you, my fellow noblemen at arms:
If ever a distressed and longing soul
Requests the privilege to then join our ranks,
Our purpose and our sacred charity,
Who are we, mortal men, to take the cup
And hold it at arm’s length? Not so, dear friends,
For whether at the first or at the last.
We drink together till the sun may rise.
And you,” the Captain did not move or turn,
“Now, take your place in line among the back,
For you shall pace us in the coming war,
To bear the knowledge of the fateful day
When we, at last, shall see the kingdom come…”
IV
And the refrain rings clearly in her head;
The leerie makes another round again,
With curtains drawn, the candle lit instead;
“The Kingdom never meant for mortal men...”
The Kingdom, ever bowed to Heaven’s gate
And studied, over pen and silver slate
Joined on an altar: mission wed with fate
That, if the stars align, becomes the guide
Locked in the drawer her journal rests inside;
Locked in the spirit of another tide,
Locked in the war, locked in the precious gold,
Locked in the secret she may never hold
In her name. And she finds she could not have it.
To have then the eventide
Grip in relentless pursuit
Of her warned and weathered heart,
As she breathes it in, trading in suit
Her silver silk nightgown for a purple robe
To brace against the biting autumn air,
To breathe it in again,
Breathe in her memories, breathe in her past.
She never had considered it before
‘Til walking down the dimly lighted street
Where in the lamplight spirits she may meet
Encircle her perceptions and the end
Of all she left. Her shiv’ring hands depend
Upon a parapet, leans like a friend
On cold and metal guard over the bend.
A river runs beneath her to attend,
To never meet, the living and the dead,
To linger and to never hold again,
And breathing bears the weight of nothing gained
Through all her dreaming, all her yesterdays.
Only the wind now wipes a golden tear
From her frozen face, frozen then with fear
Of lasting grief, of echoing despair,
The making dissipating in the air.
“Fair chance,” the leerie rounds the corner there,
Emerging from a stone descending stair,
Discarding the end of his cigarette,
“To breathe again; breathe, dear, and take it in…
It never had a harm; it never did.
And where to begin to fit it in…
Come with me, now, and beyond what you see
As answer and as truth, as heavenly
Divined and simple inspiration be.”
His kindly hand encloses her restless shoulders.
In a small moment, she wishes he would hold her
There on the edge, the edge of the present,
To not fall into the future, but the past,
There on the edge of what she thought she knew.
“Come with me, friend; come now to history:”
The old man smiled.
“Begin with epic, then with mystery,
Then myth, then doubt and fear, then victory,
Yes, victory! Victory in what you lack:
The breath you crave, the wisdom from the past.
Breathe it in, friend; relax, and take it in…”
She never had considered it before…
The past, once more, the past, the loving past!
Where wins and losses line the sidewalk cracks
But set in stone forever set to stay,
And tears are loosed upon a yesterday.
It never seemed so feasible before;
She never had considered it before,
For what was it worth in the wistful form
She had her mind set on? It was a storm,
It never seemed so feasible before,
That whipped her feet from off the trodden path
And wrenched her hair asunder in the wrath
Of the oncoming maelstrom of defeat
Of ignorance, of proving that the least
Thought-through dilemma will prevent the way,
It never seemed so feasible before,
The marching on, the beating of the day,
The proud and noble warriors of old
So manifested from the tales of old
To usher in the new atop the old.
She never had considered it before:
What was becomes the nation’s northern star,
The blazing light, a compass in the night,
To lead toward a better-bodied fight
Between the world we know and what we are -
O’ Victory! O’ Past, O’ Loving Past -
O’ what is Past but Future Victory -
The Kingdom Never Meant for Mortal Men!
O’ Victory,
O’ Past,
O’ Loving Past!
And you, the waiting soul out wandering there:
When you return, when you descend the stair,
When bricks you pass among the bric-a-brac
Envelop you again,
When find, you will one day, your steady feet
Resound among the spirits that you meet
That long for you, that will not take defeat
In stride, but press onward for the attack
To drown you out again,
You turn the corner; tender you will go;
Where moonlight meets the middle of the road,
She meets you once again.
Do not forget:
Do not forget her figure in the rain,
The halo shimmering ‘round her siloed frame
That will not lose, but everything to gain
By finding you again.
Do not forget the flicker in her eyes
When, turning, she resolves to meet your gaze
In sorrow yet in hope now unfraid,
And rushing from the balustrade she flies
Into your arms again.
Do not forget the shiver of the rain
And violets grace the softness of her hair;
A moment, then the breath you both will bear
When she whispers again:
“Arise, my Captain; to the fair city we go.”
Do not forget; and do not forsake her,
Though she may tempt the world to forsake you.
For they all, she, will someday bear again
To breathe it in, to follow the start
Past the end and back to the beginning.
I
Come with me, friend, around the coming bend
Which holds no road or sidewalk in an end
Unto itself at its beginning.
Come with me, my friend; come and take it in:
The faded brick that lacks the years that pass,
Where to begin to maybe fit it in;
Between the ticks and tacks
Among the bric-a-brac
Down by the river stretching history thin;
Breathe it in, my friend; breathe, and take it in...
Come with me, and now to begin the letter!
Take note: the news has never spread the better
To the street where the storefronts never close
And concrete never creaks under the weight
Of silver dollars; open wide the gate
For smooth transitions as the trumpet blows,
Heralding in the monarch of the age:
A finer sex than we, and richer wage
Rewarded to the martyrs of her cause
And knighted by her blade, sharp as it was
In the name
Come with me, where the cracks are made by moles,
Not so by time and sweet erosion,
And the snakes within their holes
Set off the rhyme in deeper motion
To disrupt the predetermined grooves
For gravel that is wedged within our shoes
And, looking for the sledgehammer, find glue;
To then insist, "I would prefer not to" -
Oh, don’t you understand?
Why, this is how it is:
A lily and a daffodil
Adorn the arch of stone;
The picture frame is empty still;
A cobweb hangs alone.
And while the gold may tinkle more
Than iron steeple bells,
The candleman caresses flame
For all the saints to tell
In the name of
And come now, to the corners of the street
Where in the lamplight spirits that you meet
Dance by and flicker once, then twice again
Before the leerie makes his rounds at ten
And ushers on the path beneath our feet;
And hush: the man in flesh to comprehend.
See where he goes: the conclave of the soul,
Where who will win
Is up for raucous and intense debate.
The tougher skin
Will wear like hide rain-soaked atop the knoll
Where mind met sin
And in the narthex chose the narrow gate
To enter in
The name of
Maiden Progress.
II
I digress:
A vision of her light
Fractals as her skirtails trail over the sea;
An afternoon delight
Of Faust and lavender coffee,
All served with a smile
And a sparkling eye that, all the while
Craved more a honey green tea
In the cool of an evening summer night.
"Take the adjustment in stride", despite
The disposition to keep walking
And take a metered mile
Within the inch of an infantile
Desktop setup in the free
World of Power, Might, and Right -
"It must be much more simple to be blind,"
She dreams aloud to any mastermind
Set squarely on the atrophy: to find
The most efficient way to leave behind
The medicine that troubles her.
Too reticent - another first -
It never seemed so feasible before,
Tucked deep within her little bedside drawer
Among her memories, too tight a score
And filled with famine, pestilence, and war,
Opened once more to touch and stir
What can be made right, loving, firm.
She wakes...
She blinks...
She rolls across the bed
To her little bedside drawer
To clear the annals of history
And her head.
And as she writes,
A noted glance, a flourishing of fingers
Moving to the next available task
As softly as the clinging of the wind
Spotted on the leaves, where it lingers
Without needing to ask.
No petal of the rose escapes her eye
Or lapses past her ear, as notes of a singer
Whose memory combs the past
While plucking future fruits from the brink
Of waking hours to bring her
Message and intention to the sacred here and now,
Displayed in all the twinklings of her face,
Held gingerly, yet solidly in place
Within the palms of perspective and time
And in the shelter of a breathless gaze
On which you can borrow
For all the life and limb of yesterdays,
Todays, the afternoons, tomorrows,
To make it all right.
And as she writes…
III
"Arise, my Captain; to the fair city we go..."
The pageboy rushed into the canvas tent,
Arousing from the cognizance of maps
The officers encircled round a table
In preparation for the day’s advance.
The click of boots among the fallen stones
Signaled the sudden rising of the men
In flaming red, but tattered, uniforms,
The dust of evenings past still clinging fast
Beneath their fringes. There, the Captain stood,
Intent among the men at arms; yet still
Another notion brewing in the air
Surprised the pageboy, forcing him to stand
In rapt attention: simple, quiet calm
Colored the glint within the careful eye
Of one who has perspective of it all.
"Come, boy," the Captain said, "and take a long look
At what the fates would have in store for our hand."
Presenting all the movements of the troops,
The cavalry, the bows, the light brigade,
And though a child may pattern out the steps,
The pageboy could see nothing making sense
To his pure, uninitiated mind.
"Is this it?" he exclaimed. "That's all it is?" -
In this, he found himself too stunned to speak -
"My eloquence is lost among the folds
Of paper dreams - or was it ever mine?
I can recall my daydreams as a child,
Where my small energies were made to be
A servant of the histories of war,
A soldier, then a scout, a general,
And finally a god above it all,
The tides of history turning in my palm,
Surprising and waylaying caravans
Meant for a resupply, a charge of steel
And blood and sweat and raw adrenaline
In hopes of conquest or, and better still,
If finally a god above it all,
A seat among the presence of the great -
So finally a god above it all -
But was it ever mine? When I survey
Your prophecies and well-worn battle plans,
It's lost upon me, suddenly and swift
Like clenching tides or grasping at the wind,
Never to be held or be seen again -
And what I wouldn't give to now defy
The very fabric of the universe
And pickpocket the treasures of the book
That is already written then to gain
The knowledge, nay, the wisdom of an age,
The Kingdom never meant for mortal men,
Of oft before and yet so far away..."
His words trailed off, and silence filled the room.
Nobody moved or stirred, except the one -
The Captain turned and, reversing his step,
Began to pace, his hands behind his back
And chin pressed downward on his heavy chest.
His eyes were neither blinking nor skittish,
And yet he was stupendously alert.
When just a moment passed without a breath,
The Captain straightened, looked into the eyes
Of the bewildered pageboy, and he spoke,
As clear as morning dew glints in the sun -
"You see, men, this is such the warrior.
This is the pinnacle, the age of old
And what will bring the divine to the new:
The Kingdom never meant for mortal men…
And you, my fellow noblemen at arms:
If ever a distressed and longing soul
Requests the privilege to then join our ranks,
Our purpose and our sacred charity,
Who are we, mortal men, to take the cup
And hold it at arm’s length? Not so, dear friends,
For whether at the first or at the last.
We drink together till the sun may rise.
And you,” the Captain did not move or turn,
“Now, take your place in line among the back,
For you shall pace us in the coming war,
To bear the knowledge of the fateful day
When we, at last, shall see the kingdom come…”
IV
And the refrain rings clearly in her head;
The leerie makes another round again,
With curtains drawn, the candle lit instead;
“The Kingdom never meant for mortal men...”
The Kingdom, ever bowed to Heaven’s gate
And studied, over pen and silver slate
Joined on an altar: mission wed with fate
That, if the stars align, becomes the guide
Locked in the drawer her journal rests inside;
Locked in the spirit of another tide,
Locked in the war, locked in the precious gold,
Locked in the secret she may never hold
In her name. And she finds she could not have it.
To have then the eventide
Grip in relentless pursuit
Of her warned and weathered heart,
Sirens call, lead to the air outside
As she breathes it in, trading in suit
Her silver silk nightgown for a purple robe
To brace against the biting autumn air,
To breathe it in again,
Breathe in her memories, breathe in her past.
She never had considered it before
‘Til walking down the dimly lighted street
Where in the lamplight spirits she may meet
Encircle her perceptions and the end
Of all she left. Her shiv’ring hands depend
Upon a parapet, leans like a friend
On cold and metal guard over the bend.
A river runs beneath her to attend,
To never meet, the living and the dead,
To linger and to never hold again,
And breathing bears the weight of nothing gained
Through all her dreaming, all her yesterdays.
Only the wind now wipes a golden tear
From her frozen face, frozen then with fear
Of lasting grief, of echoing despair,
The making dissipating in the air.
“Fair chance,” the leerie rounds the corner there,
Emerging from a stone descending stair,
Discarding the end of his cigarette,
“To breathe again; breathe, dear, and take it in…
It never had a harm; it never did.
And where to begin to fit it in…
Come with me, now, and beyond what you see
As answer and as truth, as heavenly
Divined and simple inspiration be.”
His kindly hand encloses her restless shoulders.
In a small moment, she wishes he would hold her
There on the edge, the edge of the present,
To not fall into the future, but the past,
There on the edge of what she thought she knew.
“Come with me, friend; come now to history:”
The old man smiled.
“Begin with epic, then with mystery,
Then myth, then doubt and fear, then victory,
Yes, victory! Victory in what you lack:
The breath you crave, the wisdom from the past.
Breathe it in, friend; relax, and take it in…”
She never had considered it before…
The past, once more, the past, the loving past!
Where wins and losses line the sidewalk cracks
But set in stone forever set to stay,
And tears are loosed upon a yesterday.
It never seemed so feasible before;
She never had considered it before,
For what was it worth in the wistful form
She had her mind set on? It was a storm,
It never seemed so feasible before,
That whipped her feet from off the trodden path
And wrenched her hair asunder in the wrath
Of the oncoming maelstrom of defeat
Of ignorance, of proving that the least
Thought-through dilemma will prevent the way,
It never seemed so feasible before,
The marching on, the beating of the day,
The proud and noble warriors of old
So manifested from the tales of old
To usher in the new atop the old.
She never had considered it before:
What was becomes the nation’s northern star,
The blazing light, a compass in the night,
To lead toward a better-bodied fight
Between the world we know and what we are -
O’ Victory! O’ Past, O’ Loving Past -
O’ what is Past but Future Victory -
The Kingdom Never Meant for Mortal Men!
O’ Victory,
O’ Past,
O’ Loving Past!
And you, the waiting soul out wandering there:
When you return, when you descend the stair,
When bricks you pass among the bric-a-brac
Envelop you again,
When find, you will one day, your steady feet
Resound among the spirits that you meet
That long for you, that will not take defeat
In stride, but press onward for the attack
To drown you out again,
You turn the corner; tender you will go;
Where moonlight meets the middle of the road,
She meets you once again.
Do not forget:
Do not forget her figure in the rain,
The halo shimmering ‘round her siloed frame
That will not lose, but everything to gain
By finding you again.
Do not forget the flicker in her eyes
When, turning, she resolves to meet your gaze
In sorrow yet in hope now unfraid,
And rushing from the balustrade she flies
Into your arms again.
Do not forget the shiver of the rain
And violets grace the softness of her hair;
A moment, then the breath you both will bear
When she whispers again:
“Arise, my Captain; to the fair city we go.”
Do not forget; and do not forsake her,
Though she may tempt the world to forsake you.
For they all, she, will someday bear again
To breathe it in, to follow the start
Past the end and back to the beginning.
Comments
Post a Comment