'The Dark Backward And Abysm Of Time' (*) Poem by Daniel Brick

(*) Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2, line 62

A demi-god, proud and foolish, made the Earth
and her Moon. The work was difficult and
unrewarding to him. He was bored and uninspired.
He invented the shameful custom of cursing things
whose darkness dismays us. He created a world
out of nothingness, except his deep impulse
and the readiness of the non-existent to be.
He grew smaller as he made the world bigger.

Later worshipers named this demi-god
VOLTURAN. They were awed by the shadow
of his creative power. (The good demi-gods
had not yet thought themselves into being.)
They never spoke words of a base nature.
They were the inventors of Poetry and Music,
and established their rapport for all the ages.
Volturan's sense of failure puzzled them.

How could Volturan revile the Earth and threaten
to render it as lifeless as the Moon? They saw
only good in his planet and her creatures. And they
loved him. They honored him. They praised him
as the Source, the essential heart beat of all things,
the Voice that spoke them in the wildness of the wind
and in the quietude of sleep. They smiled even as he
frowned and plotted against them. They deserved better.

The ancient texts describe Volturan as an angry and
bitter God, who leaned against the edge of Space,
pushing aside the fabric of the sky to make more
room for himself. He gazed down the corridors
of Time with a stare that ignited fires and
burned what he could not love into cinders and ash.
But his reign of power was not to last. What is
that force in things that is aroused in due time?

And so it was that Volturan regressed from being
to place. He lumbered into a cosmic niche
enveloped in nothingness, and was steadily
absorbed into its solidity. He became a chunk
of the Southern Mountains as they rose over
colliding land masses. He was fixed forever
into the mineral life of the planet, and
his being dissolved into place, his pride broken.

The Earth had purged itself of something
unworthy of existence. Then, with infinite patience,
the Earth transformed itself from mere place into
living being, a Goddess, a Cosmic Mother, whose
loving hand and serene countenance prevailed
over Space and Time. She unfolded waves of love
that rolled around and around, embracing
both beings and places into a Harmony of Life.