Canto Of New Year's Day 2022 Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

The Pattern. The Pattern is Inevitable and Inescapable; Yet the Pattern is in Ever-Increase and hall and Must be Non-Dogmatic.
The Wood of Tall Thorns. The Castle Dilapidated in the Middle of the Wood of Thorns
A Visit to the Wood of Tall Trees at Night. The Castle Lights. A Scream is heard. Echoes of
Fleeing from the wood of Tall. Thorns. The Nocturnal Horse Appears Out of the Dark and Fleeing On It.


Proportion, proportion everywhere.
And where proportion there Pattern must be.
Shall be.
In as direct proportion.
Yet the Pattern shall not be Dogmatic Ever.
But continuous ever, ever-increase.


There stood the Wood of Thorns
Away from town and city steered
The countryside and paths of dust
Path to path
Path upon path
Converged, separate, parallel
Yet in global labyrinth to
Labyrinth.

Only the heavens guide through such Labyrinths.

Thus by Minerva aided-inspired
Upon the Castle of Thorns came I
The Labyrinth dissolved into One Path
For Minerva, for me.


How drear and dry and sad
Even the distant look of that castle drear
The Castle in the Midst of the Wood of Thorns
How tall arose the thorns how dense!
Clustered were they more than xerophytes
In Texas and in Mexico.
As the castle neared by I saw
In as proportion direct to the vicinity
The dilapidation old and negligent of
That drear Castle.
Iron windows open, some still
Standing but creaking,
Creaking eerily though no wind
Moved the heads of the long thorns.
As we approached Minerva said:
‘Fear not for I be here; yet
For horror be prepared and inborn fear'
And
Before she finished her words yet
Speaking
A window lighted and then another
And then another.
Recoiled I back - that was instinct
Yet Minerva all fore thinking said:
‘Come take my head and let not
The instinct of fear turn you back;
For once I be here then proportionally
You shall dispense with the survival instinct'
Full with her words I obeyed as the child his Mother
Into the Castle we thus went
But barely entered through one door half-open
A large sound, a falling window -
Were it not for Minerva how would my heart stop and cease.

Into the castle we went and round the rooms
As in one labyrinth to labyrinth
How drear the cobwebs danced in synchrony
With cob-webs and the portraits old!
The moving furniture aggressive moved
As the bull in Espana towards the matador.
And lights - nay, the light that color
Changed while shadows danced on
Boiling walls of the black whispering:
Many the rooms and places
Many the hour!
The Spirits of that place of horror
Were disturbed and restless more
With every second in their anger
Grew.
Yet there was Minerva my safe passport!
And then of sudden a giant Scream
That made the walls and the floors beneath the feet
Tremble and vibrate that horror:
And then commenced a Babel of words
Sounds screams and cursing of those Spirits disturbed
Yet in their fuming because of Minerva they
Stood limited; or as a Bird with pruned wings
That wills, attempts to fly but falls again.
Dear reader more I shall not say
For at the thought-remembrance I tremble so
And thus we came out of that hated place
There envy in every corner lurked
And we heard pace after pace of Hate:

Then once out arose before us threatening
The thorny appendages as snakes live
And wild.
Turning to the Muse I was to speak.
But she, she stopped before I uttered word.

Her hand elongated moved once - but once!
And in the distance we heard hoofs
And then the moon-light kind
Unfolded in that dark a running horse.
In our direction it came and stopped
By.
I felt Minerva safe shove me on that
Horse; behind stood she;
And then through Labyrinths many as one path
We traveled till we touched safety.

That was long ago, but remembrance
Brings it near in time, renews it oft.