Mystic Journey: Air 2 Poem by doug bentley

across the equator, past singapore (lion
city which guards gates to mystic orient
of the soul) , on and on and on, into open
indian ocean the ship soared over dormant

volcanoes which buried magnificent stone
cities of legendary lost Mu, first empire
of the sun. unrolling scrolls on sacred
myths, all cultures point to one beginning

in that e.din lost. it is there that, as salmon
spawning do, souls of the dead seek origin,
flipping through windless, waveless days alone
where heat and humidity perfectly mirror

the body. the body become an ocean, no
division between inner and outer was any
longer felt. no division too between blue
sea and blue sky, two suns blinded day.

no division between black sky and black sea,
two moons bound night. this horizonless time
led the anchorless sailors to ask, 'are we
sailing in the sky, or sleeping in brine?

which side of the mirror are we on? ' for on
the sea of glass not sight, sense, nor mind
can perceive the horizon beyond vanishing
point. but there's no doubt that it's there.

then life itself seems but an experiment
absent of any scientific method, a trial
and error ordeal, verdict compound guilt,
prosecuting evidence overpowering while

defence rests defenseless. will & imagination,
the well-springs of bold youth, then seen
through the magnifying gloss of reflection
telescope into one equation- what has been

should. for in view of the verdict, every sum's
the same. death, unfathomed photon, splits
us in two; dividing, it slides us through slits
in an opaque screen, then, finally reforms

us again on the other side as an identical
particle of intelligence. so what's the power
that pulled him through? what legal principle
acted, as act it must, in that awesome hour

he was anchorless, alone, forsaken, forgotten
on a sea of glass under an unfamiliar southern
night sky where every constellation is new,
at least, new to a northern dweller who

had never seen the southern cross? rising
from sea as if lifted by an unseen hand, ever
higher and higher it rises until, brilliant
dot at pivot of southern night starburst, it

seems to hold up the sky, every star system
spinning around it. in a dilating vision
the Southern Cross finally hung motionless
as a monarch butterfly pinned against glass.