The Pillar & Snake

With the burning vision, my sense grew faint:

  All 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 in mournful complaint:

  The consuming image was the sole light –

  The Truth – against whose strength no man can 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 free my soul from whatever it sought;

To uphold the grace of all the law taught.

  But more I struggled, the more strength it had;

  My soul's fate seemed so doomed ... pathetic ... sad—

A short prayer—cry!— for mercy freed my thought.

Had I then succumbed?  Was my soul forfeit?

  What dire temple 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,

  B 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 faithless or timid inquisitors,

  Who believed 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 with their herds.  They 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 gently wiped my brow, caught

My hand as I stumbled.  Quickly she led

  Me through the folds of a tent unto rest:

  On lamb’s fleece, soft-pillowed, with prayer I blessed

Her people and her kindness.  Worries fled

  With her nursing and tender healing ways:

  I rested and took strength 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 anger.

  Two shepherds entered, saw my fearful self:

  A flask’s bitter drink I swallowed for health.

 

How to accept what we think of as death?

  Glances of our eyes betray.  The shepherds

  I lived among.  I helped them tend their herds

And watched their priests who crafted each stone’s width

Into a fluted column’s precise girth,

  Who blessed the flames 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, in 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,

  Live into the flame at the column’s base.

My soul sickened with each grim performance:

  I would not eat the burnt flesh of the mice

  Yet drank in foul spirits and ate the 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 would look at 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 fear and quickening shame.

How 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 with ease.

  The fluttering pennant jolted my sight,

  While men crossed the stream, preventing my flight.

Round, pink faces, a green 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;

Laughing and smiling, 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 a temple and saw

People praying while a priest sifted grain

  Over an altar with three writhing snakes.

  Outside few coins appeased my hunger’s aches.

On one side of the coins, a 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 on 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 spies land and hill:

The column and serpent 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.

But my heart she’d 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.