Work In Prog.

Learn to be silent.

Sit,
and hear now of how we began
to form one from many and see many in one,
to find the knowledges that had been hidden
in the arcane and in the patterns of the sky,
to see the mysteries and see through them,
into the living truths they clothe.

Sit,
and hear now of how we began.

From Croton by a Phoenician vessel,
a trireme where frigates fully rigged
and weighed with the spices of the East
would make their way home,
a trireme where merchant tankers with rows of
sealed steel holds would float.
But we, between rows of
rowers sweating shoulder to shoulder
behind the oars,
started across the trapped sea with the dawn,
toward the Levantine sun that rose ever before us
and bed us on.
We come, we come.

The son of the oracle’s words and I,

To the foundations of heaven and earth
that rise from between the backward waters
between the tribes of Nbioth and Kedar,
we come.
To the churning land of the twelve tribes
that have been bathed in blood, and divided
as it seems, since the beginning of time,
we come.
To the black earth that replenishes itself,
over running its bounds, before slowly
receding, leaving life behind,
we come,
we come,
we come.

Our oarsman, bent back across the Middle Seas.
We beached once on the Peloponese,
to gather water and provisions before on to Crete
then South of Cyprus, we rowed until we
To Tyre arrive; south of Beirut’s,
as yet unfounded grounds.
And so it was, into the gilded Phoenician harbors
the trireme glided. The island city
from which sprung Carthage and Grecian Thebes
bustled with trade, this before Alexander
built his causeway, razed and rebuilt this city,
a city of great commerce and learning,
but only an oxcart and an ass for our travels
with the camel trains and caravans that lead
toward the heart of the empire
laden with Tyrian Purple and felled trees.

We crossed first the Nahr el Litani
the pass that cuts under Mount Hermon,
called Sirion, the mountain upon which
the Grigori descended and from which
the Nazarene was raised, north of the Golan Rise,
where a battlement of batteries bombarded
by javelins hurled a hundred miles distant
would serve as a battleground for the descendants
of the sons of Abraham.
The caravan came to the city they said
had stood between the Abana and
the Pharpar ten thousand years,
To be razed by Pul the Assyrian and rebuilt,
To be razed by Alexander the Hellene and rebuilt,
To be razed by Nur ad-Din the Zengid and rebuilt,
To be razed by Saladin who was from Tiqrit and rebuilt,
To be razed by Timur and rebuilt,
To be razed by Selim and rebuilt,
To be razed by Gouraud the frenchman,
Who kicked Saladin’s tomb and said
“we have returned,”
but after Gouraud, Shukri al- Quwatli looked
Over the city again— rebuilt.

And like all cities, the oldest and the youngest,
Conquered and reconquered—
its songs were sung.

And Pul,
Tiglath-Pileser, had conquered
all the lands of the east short of the Zagros,
and Pul
died and left those lands to his son
who died and left them depleted to his son
and so on until another came and
conquered
all the lands of the East short of the Zargos
to leave to his sons.
And so it was that it was into a city
of Nebuchadnezzar that we arrived
when we arrived into Damascus
(though soon enough it would
find itself in Cyrus’s hands).
The streets,
thin and winding, not yet lined with
their stretching minarets, not yet scattered
with trash and sand, the sounds of horns, the
rebar topped concrete of unfinished buildings,
were clothed only in the bubble of the bazaar:
the laughter of urchins, the conversations of
the women, mewing livestock and the butchers and
storekeepers on
their corners with their pitches.

Yes, the
street called straight that cut the middle
of the city like a plowed row with weeds
of pavilions and marquees under the pergola
that shades the bazaar was crowded with
bazaaris shouting and haggling,
shoppers searching through goods,
ambling the lane as we arrived.
And our
guide broke us from the caravan
which had business to do
and led us as emissaries of the west
To the elder of the city.

And he
turned to the Samian and me and said
“I have seen Ishtar cross the path of Sin.
“I knew you were to come. I am Bare here
“and teacher to the scribes and those who
“would see the universe as it is. This
“is a city of university.
“Our learning
“here has been passed down generations
“like the tablets it is written upon. And
“our learning here is not yet over. Like time
“being written, it cannot end until we end,
“and when we end, only what was written
“has ended and time continues on.
“We begin at the source and our end is the mouth
“released into an ocean of souls to be plucked
“into the clouds and rained down onto the mountain
“like the man’s seed in her slopes to become a creek
“and grow into a river finding our rest in the sea.
“Our nature, not time’s, is that.
“Time itself is an ocean
“with rivers in currents, and tides and waves
“with depth and breadth and an infinince in its change
“while still
“It remains.
“And we are like flotsam on its roll—
“No.
“We have some short will,
“but not so much as control,
“though we may be fooled by our own
“actions and accomplishments
“by our technologies,
“but—all of these things end rendered useless by time.”
And I
turned and asked the Bare “so then from time
“can there be no escape? If we are
“continually thrust and torn to and from life
“and time is an endless expanse—
“where is there rest to be found?”
He turned to me and replied,
“In life and in death—
“in both can be found rest.”
Paused, then said:
“Things progress through time,
“time is not a progression.
“time is a god, as are all things eternal.
“think back to what our parents worshipped:
“first the earth and sky, the sun and stars
“the storm and seas, these things that
“give and take,
“that always have and
“always will be here to see life
“given and taken—.
“And as our parents grew more subtle
“they began to worship new things:
“love, wisodm, knowledge and soon
“technologies—
“and even as these seem born from man,
“they are inherent in creation—
“the knowledge is there for our learning
“the technology is there from our learning
“and we create using the materials and methods
“of creation, which we know, through our learning.
“And soon the earth and sky, the sun and stars,
“the storm and seas are forgotten. Alone in
“our worship are our own works, and we forget
“we have derived them from the only thing from which
“derivation has ever been possible.
“And we imitate our surroundings in new ways
“and forget the old gods,
“but they remind us then of why
“our parents paid their respects,
“never took for granted what
“was given and could be taken away.
“And they remind us of why
“our parents taught us the things they taught,
“or if our parents were ignorant at least our
“grandfathers left us these tablets
“with the words and the rites—.
“And these
“are the mysteries—
“the methods of respect the gods demand.
“These the methods of serenity, reverence and peace.
“In these alone I find rest.”


We left from Damas across the desert of sand and black glass
as the Kassim began to blow its heat up from the south,
tearing all life north with it,
leaving shorn trees and dust
where it had been.
And
the Kassim blew the sand ahead
of us as we crossed to Tadmor
whipping our clothes about us.
And
Tadmor would be Palmyra
with colonnaded cardo but
Tadmor was Tadmor
with tents by the oasis
thrashed by the wind
snapping their corners between guy lines.
The date palms bent with fronds outstretched
like the hands of so many mothers
when the city’s army returns defeated
with their sons on its shields.
Yes, the palms wailed in their own
organic undulation for their fronds,
torn off by the wind.
And so
we took shelter in their hospitality,
under the camel wool of the bayt
and commiserated over our misfortune

From Tadmor to the township of Mari
the Kassim Wind followed us,
with the heat of the phoenix fire
beat by his wings in conflagration.
We crossed the desert stopping at
oases our guide had familiarity of
until we arrived in Mari which lay
upon the lazy waters of the Euphrates
Mari which had been a grand city
until sacked by Hammurabi,
its given fate never to regain its grandure—.
So, to a trading town and with it a harbor
on the slow waters we came.
And there we waited days for the Kassim to die,
and when its winds were deadened
by boat we started south toward Babylon.

A hiss hung in the air from the grain
rubbing against itself in the wind—
swaying lazily like a cobra under the flute’s spell.
Autumn had arrived and with it
the bronze scythes flashing above the barley
like the backs of dolphins breaking the waves
herald the harvest had come.
Soon the threshing song would be sung.
Soon, but first the reaping scythes must swing
mocking the scything of swords that had
befallen this land for thousands of years.
And periodically we would see tanks
of water for the cattle afield
where later would stand tanks
of metal upon the battle field,
and soldiers with new javelins to hurl,
but the same wealth to gain.

I stood on the comfortably rocking deck
until the Samian addressed me and said:
“Brother, I was thinking of the words of the
“wise Bare with whose company
“we must now do without.
“thinking of his words on our lives
“and on our soul’s times as rivers
“and I realized that, as he came upon
“with his images but never said,
“we are a merging of two opposites
“that ride upon each other and are torn apart.
“Like two great wheels, one in the sky
“and one the earth and we are what is between,
“where the two meet, and we are born in their
“meeting and die in their tearing apart,
“and they are two circles stacked upon each other
“and they are two circles that are held in one
“and they are the dyad within the circle:
“the monad which begat the dyad,
“the dyad which begat numbers,
“numbers which begat the point,
“the point which begat the line,
“and the line begat the plane,
“plane which begat dimension,
“in which all things that we know exist.”
to which i responded, “like the wheels of a mill
crushing and
refining our souls.”
“Yes, like the wheels of a mill crushing and refining our souls.”
“And then, Samian friend, what is the soul’s refinement?
“What is this perfection toward which the wheels turn,
“that we must all hope in the end to be?”
“That is a question for the gods, brother.”
“And then where will we find our answer,
“hearing the sounds of the world?
“I will tell you, Samian, what I have found.
“It will be said, by one some regard a prophet
“that the eye is the window of the soul
“if so, an eye closed cannot allow
“the light to shine into the being, and
“an eye enrapt in the light will bring on
it’s own blindness.
“So, it seems,
“dangerous not to acknowledge and use the light
“and dangerous to gaze only upon the light
“and forsake what is in this world.
“The only understanding must be taken indirectly.”
“The window of the soul?
“The window of the soul. But even so it seems,
“this is no answer to what perfection we must attain.”

And so it was we were well rested when
the wonders of Babylon fell before our eyes.w
and we beheld for the first time the splendor
of the earth.