How It Happens (I) Poem by Daniel Brick

How It Happens (I)



AT ONCE I knew she was
a novice, probably her first
solo descent, nervous and tired;
the Recovery Phase of sleep and
dreams was summoning her, but
she was distracted by my psychic
proximity. She had gone astray
in the vast asphodel(*)fields
in the hinterlands of the city.
How many sincere aspirants have
gone astray because of these fields?
They flounder and fail, or do they?
All things eventually recur, there will
be the sweet-scented repose she missed
today, and its opposite will be carried
by parallel streams at the same moment.
(This poem is only concerned with
How It Begins. Isn't that enough?)

When I approached her, my left arm
outstretched, my left palm facing
down, she was relieved. This gesture
affirms Good Intentions, its power resides
in a pure mind. (It is the way two pure minds
recognize each other and connect.)"They told me
back there, where I began walking, that I would
meet a helper. Tell me quickly, are YOU that helper? "
She was smiling brightly, I was moved by her immediate
bravery. I nodded, also smiling. "Do you have a name?
I'm very grateful." She spoke with simple honesty,
I replied in kind: "Call me Aaron as I call you Rebecca."
And that was a kind of seal between us, for the time being,
as we say in English. And we were content in our disguises.

(*)Asphodel is a variety of lily, symbolic of moving across alien
realms of being; for example, Homer describes the dead wandering
in asphodel fields in the Underworld.

How It Happens (II)

A mysterious force nudged us across the Threshold
of Beginnings into a wider world of expectations.
It was not a physical touch, but it moved us
physically. And we sensed we were breathing
a different air, more abundant, more invigorating.
Rebecca said this in words, I nodded silently, and
we both breathed huge breaths. Our lungs filled
with possibilities, that spilled over their capacities
and flooded our whole body. What could I do but quote
Rilke's "Spanish Dancer"? I shouted in broken rapture:

"Her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.
And all at once it is completely F-I-R-E."

But you, you became the fiery dancer, right there,
standing stretched upward, fully extended, fully
aroused, you were a column of fire, twirling, wildly
twisting yourself into the thinnest of forms,
your arms reaching upward, your index fingers joined
in an arrow of fire that blazed the sky itself...

Or so it seemed.

"This is only the beginning, Rebecca."
She looked at me with a gaze that asked a thousand
questions but could not abide even one answer.
I put my hands on her shoulders, I could feel
the tensile energy of her dance now cool within her.
"This is good, Rebecca. This is what it should be.
You are not Passion's slave. Remember that, even if
I forget it, you remember it... " I fell silent,
and she accepted my silence. She was growing in Nocturnal
Strength. Soon (too soon?)the ordinary nights will not hold her.

Monday, May 14, 2018
Topic(s) of this poem: fantasy
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