The Pillar & Snake

With a burning vision, my sense felt faint:
My poems were vanquished by the searing thought.
I knew in a moment how pride was naught
And the humiliation of a saint.
I cast my eyes round with mournful complaint:
The consuming image cast the sole light,
The Truth whose strength, humbling, no man could fight.
The vision in words, hereafter, I paint.
In the depth of nature’s heart, its being,
Where time begins, where history is born,
A lone marble column stands, one forlorn,
Crafted with immemorial fluting.
Entwining round it with supple yearning,
A serpent rises, with bright gaze turning.

The serpent gazed toward me and I was caught
By hypnotic eyes: yet— I searched for ways
To foil its vile intent, its yearning gaze—
To uphold the grace of all the law taught.                                                                                                                       But then what—what of my innocence it sought?                                                                                                           The more I struggled, the more strength it had;
My soul’s fate seemed weak, pathetic, sad—
A short prayer—cry— for mercy freed my thought.
Had I then succumbed?  Was my soul forfeit?
What temple dire had the column once braced?
What holy of holies had been there placed?
Careful deduction and search might profit
My knowledge of the timeless mystery,
Though the serpent guarded its history.

Out of the serpent’s mouth, a mournful sound:
Flittermice, like dark butterflies, out flew,
Encompassing the snake—my breath’s start drew
Their evil faces, round me and around,
Biting me, nipping, tearing—my head crowned
With their wings and teeth; feasting on the blood
Trickling down my face, o’er my eyes, the brood
Drove me hence from the column’s sacred ground
Into the thorns that had obscured my path
From foolish and timid inquisitors,
Who assumed my love one of idle hours;
My hands and my face were scourged in the wrath.
Into time I escaped their ravishments
And crossed parched sands in a vision of tents.

Like a wandering vagabond distraught,
I approached a dust-tent community
Of shepherds and their herds, who took pity
On me as a stranger and guest.  I sought
Comfort unknown to my mind.  A jug’s draught
Of cool water a child held near my cheek:
With burning tongue I drank and could not speak;
A veiled woman wiped my brow gently, caught
My hand as I stumbled.  Quickly she led
Me through the folds of a tent unto rest:
On lamb’s fleece, soft-pillowed, in prayer I blessed
Her people and her kindness.  Worries fled
With the nursing and healing of her ways:
I took strength and rested beneath her gaze.
 
Time beneath night’s distant stars overhead,
My rationale returned—I tried to rise,
Yet her hand gently held me down.  Her guise
Was changed, her face unveiled.  Beauty unread
Spoke words of strange language, and nothing said
Can I relate.  Yearning for her embrace—
She brushed her fingers through my hair; my face
She turned.  Upon the tent’s hides shadows red
Cast eerily beside her hand’s finger,
Danced around a flame burning at the base
Of a marble column with fluted trace—
On the fleece I writhed with nauseous hunger.
Two shepherds entered, saw my fearful self:
A flask’s bitter drink I swallowed for health.

How we accept what we think of as death
Tells in the lines of our eyes.  The shepherds
I lived among.  I helped them tend their herds
And watched their priests who crafted each stone’s breadth
Into a fluted column’s precise girth,
Who blessed the fires kept burning at each base,
Whose tongues leapt darkly in every tent’s crease:
They worshiped the columns with living breath.
The woman, my late nurse, with tasseled dress
Would kneel to adore, would kiss the column,
With incense, chants, in ritual solemn.
Her husband with a reed basket would bless
Mice inside and feed them, carefully place,
Alive in the flame at the column’s base.

My thoughts sickened with each grim performance:
I would not eat the burnt flesh of the mice
Yet drank in foul spirits and ate their rice.
A priest whom I looked at with abhorrence
Became angry with my discountenance:
Dangling flesh of a mouse before my nose,
He shouted, cursed, then menacingly rose;
No man looked toward me, none would dare glance.
He glared—then, with mouth wide-opened, he hissed:
The men, women, my nurse, all hissed the same;
I fled them in fright and quickening shame.
Oft my soul shuddered: her dark hands I missed.
I crossed sands as a night creature hunted,
Praying for what grace the stars commanded.

As when in a dream the power of prayer
Draws a veil over a nightmare of time:
In a hill valley, pink and green with thyme,
By a cool stream I lay mid scented air,
In forgetful joy of a journey’s care,
The columns and mice a dim memory.
A troop of townsfolk in festive glory
Marched alongside the stream, with songs so fair,
Holding a banner that waved in the breeze;
Onward they gaily trooped with drums and horns.
With my mind soothed, unencompassed by thorns,
Their banner’s crowned serpent lengthened in ease.
The fluttering pennant jolted my sight,
While men crossed the stream, preventing my flight.

With round, pink faces, a cap top each head,
They jovially offered me a hand
To get up, clean off, and follow their band.
I meekly agreed and for mercy pled;
Smiling and laughing, marching on they led
Into the hills.  By a riverbend’s fork,
They abruptly stopped and began to work.
Instruments unpacked, they quietly sped
In small groups with gloves and bags to the woods.
One man fastened a tight-knit bamboo cage,
Able to withstand any small beast’s rage.
Preparing a meal of various foods,
He offered to draw me a picture crude
Of the hunt: a hand grasping a snake brood.

When does a vision relinquish its hold?
The hunters returned sacks roiling with snakes–
Into the cage, wherein they thrust grain cakes.
All for what purpose?  What language was told
I knew not.  I thought the snakes would be sold.
The hunters returned with me to their town,
Brought me to a priest, who gave me a gown
And plate to beg food.  In time I grew bold
With the prosperous folk to quench my pain:
Coins dropped on my plate, I slipped in my jaw.
One night I went to the temple and saw
People praying while the priest sifted grain
Over an altar with three writhing snakes.
Outside few coins appeased my hunger’s aches.

On one side of the coins, the coiled serpent;
On the other, bound wheat, with thyme festooned.
With them I bought hot soup, tremblingly spooned
Among furtive drifters of lives misspent.
A wish to escape roiled in discontent
My wonderings and wanderings on streets:
Too oft I sat hunched in mercy’s grim sheets;
Symbols, like dark bats, scarred my mind’s intent.
One rainy day a coin dropped in my plate
Of different hue and engraved design:
Mice in flames—the reverse, a column’s sign.
I looked up at the curious coin’s mate:
A veiled woman knelt down and took my hand
And beckoned me to return to her land.

My nurse took off my cap and brushed my hair;
I knew, as I kissed her hand, my heart’s will,
Like a mate amast who sights land and hill:
The serpent and column my heart must share—
My hopes and dreams, my freedom and despair!
A patrol whistled—she hurried away—
A beggar could not plead for mercy’s pay.
My heart she had blessed with just love’s care.
I no longer desire my life pain free
And spend my days with the art of a flute,
Playing, beckoning, a snake from a chute:
I master the creature in truth’s own key.
My fame has spread, my simple art enchants:
My soul is held in a still, rhythmic dance.