The land that I see in her eyes of water

Her eyes of water
eyes of the forgotten sea
Remind me of home


Without illusion, all things perish; illusion is itself illumination. I have only ever seen the heavens clearly when I have stared into them and became lost in some fantasy, at night if I see clouds of blood red they fade into faces of those who I have not known yet I desire to remember. Light itself also is an illusion, the sky is nothing but a comedy of lights, each blue and golden ray playing its part. There is a land I have not known and yet it returns to me as a vision of fallen leaves becoming emeralds, the cracks of stones becoming lost prayers and I hear it in the cries that birds only speak with green-tongues in dream.


I sit alone in my room and search my mind for her face and for her eyes and what dwells behind them, each memory and each fantasy passes before me.


A myriad of spirits encircle me, each one sings the song of a different land, each one the dance of their world. One sings a song of sadness and bows his black head, another who’s vestures are vermilion and laughs the laugh of friendship. Rainbow light of spirit encompasses me for each eye longs for my eye to reflect in theirs, for if I shut my eye, their own gains fire and brilliance while my own Darkens and knows nothing in his land of slumber.

Yet, I am awakened, the scorpion lifts his head hidden in the shallow waters, the princess bows her head, becoming the actress, her golden crown loses its luster.

I am stung. From the land of slumber I depart, but i keep their crest of black circles and tiredness upon my eyes as a token, a memory of nothing. The waters of sleep are bitter but only they can brighten the eyes and maybe then I’ll find that eye which glittered as the sea viewed from the breathless bay, blessed by a light which needs not the sight of men.

I thirst for you, eyes of water, who’s blue is as the azure curtain decked with stars when the sun enters its crucible and gives its brilliance in sacrifice to the angels.


You are not the cupbearer who bears the milk and ambrosia given in sacrifice to the thunderer before the King.

You are not the sword who’s soul is of the south raised against a horde of titans who’s breath is the first frost of night.

You are not the dark woman in the valley, who waits with outstretched hands to take from man everything he has worked for in life.

You are not the holy immortal fire which burns, shall burn and has always burned invisibly in the heart of those who know silence.


You are not even the purple garment which was not divided, nor are you the dice casted for the garment.


Yet within your eyes of water, I see beyond the pomegranate who’s fruit is a cluster of rubies, into the city who’s daughters are of a foreign people and their delight is of themselves, for thrice daily are they anointed by a custom secret to me, and thrice daily do they stare into the same sky as I and see not a black diadem crowning the earth, they see instead the stars as a cluster of campfires, each one welcoming them to protection and rest.

Yet when the eyes of water are turned from me, the black bells are rung over and over and this is the sound of their echo

no one has heard me in my cry,
my beads of virgin coral fall,
as a black bird crows, I am crowned
with the winter’s black diadem,
as the laurel falls, the oil dries.

my soul coils into myriads
of meaningless shapes known to none,
emptiness breathes upon each toil,
my dry tongue sticks to my mouth’s roof
and my each breath dies to my toil.

i was stung when I past the reeds,
the dark waters entered my bones
and fell out as tears, which like seeds
of sadness marked my face with ash,
and as the seeds grew, ash turned black,
my face fell ash pale and then black.

I dwell with a black diadem
as night crowns my head with darkness.
i know the black abyss of hell
is nothing but my soul’s own spell,
my soul is the hell of sorrow


Though I am a serpent who sees a silver star and longs for its light, bitting at its own tail in rage and longing, for long is the night when the favored one, the pole star, is obscured. Yet her light remains as a bland taste hiding in my mouth, hungry for more.

And as a deer thirsts for streams of water so also do I lap up my own tears for in them admixed with the dark waters is also the waters of the great sea, though I lay prostrate with dust as a head covering and tears for my meat, I am happy. For I have remembrance of You.

a serpent sees a silver Star,
leaping he longs for Living light,
but the light of life seems so far
as it fades into the dark night.

tears of the remembrance of presence Fall,
the Sad serpent bites and maws at his tail.
“sabacthani “ says he who’s face is pale,
the bell is rung and upon all bloodfalls.

darkness covers all
the Earth becomes black
all things now empty
but the Snake has his Star


Yet I enter into another heaven, tempest mingled with roaring sea and the whole earth is in earthquakes and the corpse cold hand  grasps the globe, winters wrap the world in its bosom, the bosom of death and forgetting, the bosom of change.

The taste is too sweet with putrefaction, decay  and longing have beautified the image but have robbed the eye of its fiery brilliance. I shall go to her, like A moth along a lone road, upon the air as a ghost, though a sense grows deeper upon me of something near, but lost.


though I approach her home I am filled with the scent of mourning and of myrrh, the bitterness of the willow pounding his hands in sadness as the wind’s whistle commands him.

As I look through her window I see not a lamp’s living light but the darkness of emptiness, my heart is a ball of wax melted, I am water poured out, for as I enter I do not find her and as I try to leave I cannot depart from her room.

I see her passing by, wearing the black veil of weeping and the candle of departing is held in her hands, and with her walks many who’s faces I no longer can recall, each with veil and bearing candle.

their funeral March as a flock of carrions encircling me, each face looking upon me. As they give forth tears so also is their candle extinguished and I am forgotten.

The last candle remains and I see her eyes of water, for a moment I see the sea of eternity roar in her eyes, and as a great sea is churned by the dragon in its depths so was her eyes, clouded, cataracts and as a cataract did the eyes of water fall from her and so was extinguished the last living flame.


All things now darken, even her lustral water have lost their luster and have forsaken this world. Only i remain in a dark room staring out at an oblivion of black.

in absence of all, only the presence of my own eye remains reflecting the invisible light which pervades that primeval darkness, my own iris becomes invisible and even I become absent.

In the absence of my absence, a new vision becomes present, I am within a sphere of opal fire, I am like silver purified by the furnace. Memory of each face and each image are turned into ash which mixes with the true Sea, the sea of space and time.


Before my eye passes the stream of images, flames, waters, serpents, bells, jewels, youth passing into old age, the cry of a bird at night heard at a distance, a forgotten doll, a drink I had never finished and a morsel that had fell from ones mouth and was lost, each light and each star, flame against flame, lightning against lightning, each image condensed into my sphere of fire and each filled my own eye with a new brilliance and each flash washed away the old and made it new again.


The flame and sphere itself enters my eye and everything becomes very still, the brightness of my eye blinds me for a little while but gradually dims.

As I grow accustom to the light, I look and see that I have returned to a land I have never known.