The Bows Of Endless Rite Poem by James Long II

I walked upon the desert, darkly

A doleful beat on hard packed sand

Silent, with not breath or rhythm

Made hollow, kinward, barren land



No time had touched my tortuous wander

Millennial days stretched clear to nod

Sleep, ever stranger, absent lover

A restless beast to endless trod



Above a piercing sun of fire

Against and endless, starless black

Below a broken, stark brown terra

No shoot found yet between the cracks



Then sudden, in eternal cycle

Bleak monolith commanded eye

A pale white tree, with high cast branches

A stark white fracture gainst the sky



The desert broke beneath my footfalls

As toward the tree I made my way

But soon a softness took the ground

And begged each movement there to stay



But on I strove toward my target

A curious fire within me shone

No pull of earth could tear away

Fey gravity writ deep in bone



Its trunk was wider than my vision

Its bark was warm beneath my hand

And in its branches shone the starlight

Deep roots sunk far beneath the sand



Began I climbing, every upward

My muscles groaned and tendons spake

But heaven gazed upon me, patient

The barrenness left in my wake



Thorns were raised against its structure

And all my handholds were subtle knives

They dug within my flesh, it yielding

And cut away aborted lives



And great Pan took me



Each step toward my endless westward begat in me a baleful sound

For ever more the tree demanded, as I arose from deadened ground

Each cut, a tear in inward veiling, a rough dropped scale from vitality

My tree, resounding bass tone drumming, reverberating in the roots of being

Its constant verticals in triumph shone, and broke upon the sky its note

Each thorn, a question, interrogating, my every weakness, careless smote



But every reaching followed true and found my hand the solid strength

Into the air I journeyed, spiraled, toward fractal distance, depth, and length

Each suffering claimed a cry of wonder, in bloody baptismal spirit spoke

Of melodies herefor undreamed of, the passion of abandoned yoke

The cold sun sank toward horizon, but in me yearned to cosmsic stars

For once begun, no ceasing trial; each limb obeyed and bore the scars





For I was havoc, cried out against the dark

Crucified upon gleaming branches

Prefigured against being and abyss

The start



The limbs reached deep into the sky, and rendered from it manifest life

That flowed, unbounded, down the body, to gift the earth unyielding light

And ever toward these stellar roots my being alighted in its way

Cast Adam's finger, triumphant, forth! To forge anew forever's day.

And in demanding work I found, in downward lateralus flow

Geometry of dreams eternal, the blessed peaceful fallen snow



With every inching movement upward, the tree rewarded with a gash

Bright blood washed on the face of preterism

A promise

"Fear not, this too shall come to pass"



A task, a violent act of creation

To devour, and be devoured

Faint hope

The melody of being