Gemstone of the Sky

The Knight forsook his starry steed

And dismounted onto Earth,

He unfastened his thick leather belt,

Which round his waist was girt

Knelt once again before the flame

Which burned like water’s wave

Celestial springs of molten ore

Ignited Sky’s dark grave

He sang his song to unknown ears,

His voice lifted clear and strong,

The notes which trembled like the breeze

That caresses streams flowing long

Until more tranquil, by the tree,

He lit his hard wood pipe

And sat a while and smoked in thought

Letting his mind grow ripe

For something in darkness did therein grow

Taking on formless shape

In his hands he felt it heave

And struggle to escape:

“What is this thing that wriggles here?”

He wondered alone, aloud,

Then suddenly he was then joined

By a rose-colored cloud

In voice made sweet by its great age,

Like salt makes wise the sea,

It uttered words he could not hear,

In life that cannot be

And disappeared beneath the heath

And moaned from misty grave:

“The gemstone of the Sky is lost,

Behold the abject slave.”

The Knight bent down and clutched his chest

As if he were impaled

The breath he drew was like a blade

That cut as he inhaled

He reached his hand before himself,

All vision cut from him

“I may not see ever again,”

He muttered, feeling grim

Until his hand felt in its grip

An unexpected thing:

The cloud that had appeared to him

Slipped onto it a ring,

And clenched in fist, on finger wore

The emblem of the King

And gemstone of the blood-red sky

Did in its crown take wing

If on the cross, Christ crucified

Knew anything, my friend,

It was that in death’s grinning thrall

Life laughs until the end

Because once there, it lives again

Like breath it does descend,

Until in exhale consummate

It pauses and suspends

And seems to age eternally—

One cannot comprehend—

But once the pause has run its course,

The rhizome’s tendrils send

Another shoot up through the soil,

The breath it does ascend

The mother-core within the shell

Makes tongues of fire to wend

Upwards. So now then once again

What’s ruptured moves to mend

And shadows which once played in Hell

To the Light do lend

A kind of grace—the kind that Pain

In its red Ink does pen

Upon my heart,

And so dear Knight,

Trust to this chamber-glade

All of your hopes,

And vivid dreams,

That God has for you made:

For if implanted in your soul

They may yet come to pass

The seed does not the flower see

The sand sees not the glass

Look long and deep

Close your eyes

Now sleep,

Weep, rise,

And …

Leap

"The Cracked Altar": watercolor on paper, 12"x16"