notes towards a flemish Axion Esti

by: Newbie

Notes Towards A Flemish Axion Esti

Night -origin and wonderment

And all things saying for thy sweet sake

Thoughts in the mind under starlight

And the orchards of desire in which I walked

All things in voices of joy and praise

And Sanctus ringing in the heart

O the quiver from which the archers draws his bow

The joy of the arrow in flight and the joy of the waiting target

I am archer and bow, arrow, flight, and target aimed for

Here at this ground zero of the soul

Earth    air             fire             stone

And the song of the bright spattered bird

Such is the beginning

I stood by a river and called for the boatman

But what answered me was neither human nor not-human

I felt that I should utter a cry of praise

            And this I did

I felt that I should bow down to the divine hand

That shaped the world thus

            And I did

Yet even that was not enough

Again I called on the boatman and the shadow of the Other appeared

A shadow that was pleasing

A shadow that spoke a language unlike any I had heard

And yet I understood

“O sing for me the passage across the waters of the world”

And the other

“I do not sing except that you may also sing”

Earth    air            fire            and song

Out of this I then constructed the elements I called the soul

As once again the great spattered bird

Flew Gloria in the air above me

O carry me to the deep and deepening depth

Let all my words be contained in your kiss

Bind up the heart against all lesser allegiances!

What better articulation is there than this?

What better ally than this in the world?

What other means to waken to the world that is new and find a pleasing voice there?

Citizen and exile I moved between the towns of the earth

And the silence of the wooded places

Old sites rose out of memory and I was privy to the secrets of the earth

I walked where I pleased

I sang the songs that called the soul to duty

I was open to the creeping influences

Where now was the boatman?

There was no one to be seen

I was Adam in the first brightness of the earth

And the very clay of the world sought speech with which to address me

“Then I will address all things and shout the battle-call of the soul!”

How those words escaped me I do not know

But they were spoken and could not be rescinded

Speaking as they did the duty and the joy

And with that Other I walked the many side-roads of the world

“Tell me” I said “Tell me the name of the secret, inviolable rose”

And he:

“But you know that name. You have called it many times by many names but it is always the one name to which the heart responds. Therefore do not think of it as hidden –think of it as being so manifest that you do not see the name for all the light it carries.”

We walked on

Blooms and berries

The first flowering of summer grass

“So you begin to understand? Good. The eye must ever see all things with the eye of creation and not with the dullness of sameness. This is the rose. This is its ground. And where the wave kisses the land is the origin of all things”

Begin

Follow the bird

Learn those verbs

Begin and continue into the first of the many heavens

The bird captures your soul in its fierce claws

Praise for the bird and praise for the claws

And praise for the nest it descends from and rises up to again

And there

An equal and opposite bewilderment

The death of the rose wounded my heart into language

The blight of winter upon the linden tree wounded my heart into language

All that moved towards death wounded me into language

Thorns grew on the wild bushes

The wind brought arrows of ice out of the northeast

I wrapped myself in the skins of the world

Only the beasts that moved and foraged were my companions

I sough in ancient myths a precedent and comfort

And one came to me out of that pit

And spoke as if he had been changed into a bird

 “Then give me that to solace my soul

Before I go to the colder places of the world”

I gave what I could and am giving it still

Waiting for Easter

Waiting for language

And as I sing even as the rose withers

And language empties itself of all joy

The sparrow falls

The severed heart cries out

I hear the voice of all that lives and laments

I recall, I recall

I listen to the lamentations

I listen to the cries of the many hearts in winter

I see the ice on the rose and the heart withers in pain

And again the sparrow falls from free flight into the desolations

And I must carry them all

For yes, the sorrows also compose the soul

And I will omit nothing of the desolations from the passion

Nothing omitted and nothing denied and all brought together

In the poem that says soon, soon will come the ringing of the bell and after that the rapture

I break these words on the stone of the world

I break bread on this my morning table

This the communion and this the consecration

This the prayer of the heart

Suffer -yet sing and celebrate

What then are the parables of hope to bind the heart again the blight on the rose?

Suffer, suffer, all things weep and suffer and Christ is crucified again

Suffering and language

Suffering and the many, many windings of the mind

Matters neither right nor wholesome rampant in the world

Old wounds, old wounds and the new blood flowing

Suffering and mystery and language –what have I but suffering and mystery and language?

An apple rots on the ground, corn turns to mould and dust

Now in our time, now in the place over which we pronounce a fearful but not final Amen

The poverty

The limits

The river

And I grew there

And the inheritance that passed for revelation in that time and times thereafter

O I might sing it given a song but the heart has no joy in such singing

I sat down at foreign waters

I prayed at alien altars

And the sorrows and the desolations

Even the wave weeps for history

Even the stones call out at the core of coldness in the world

As over the sorrows of the world the bright bird flies again

Down avenues of Birch and Poplars

Between the sunlit leaves of spring

Between the hedge-growth at the roadside borders and the hedges of the mind we wandered at an easy pace

“And what is the rose?”

“The rose is the heart of all things in the world”

“And what is the core of the rose?”

“It is the core that it holds itself true to”

“And can I know that core?”

“Perhaps you will glimpse it and so seek to name it but you will be naming your desire and not the rose as the rose knows itself to be.”

“Perhaps what I can carry of the rose is sufficient to the mind”

“It will have to be for the mind cannot encompass the totality of the rose no more than it can encompass the reality of any thing”

 “And Yeats and Eliot” I began

“The poets dream of things that will be and yet the dream is sufficient”

“But I want more. I want the rose in all its beauty and finery. I want the rose in all its flawless form as it opens to the claims of Easter. I also want to open in that manner”

“Then learn from the small things of the earth. Accept the seed holds the tree within its core. Accept that water must flow and that you must come with adorations to all things. Accept the word that cast a net about the rose and live with what you can”

“But I want more! I want the essence of all things in my hands like tangible seeds. I want the seed and the oak and the word and the verb it carries”

“And can you carry such reality? Can you hold the fullness of a pebble in your hand and claim to know in its fullness the stones cohesion?”

“Then I will sing as if the choir of the world was present in my voice”

“Then you have learned much and will learn more for only with this intention can the voice truly sing”

“A little, and yet even that much can give comfort to the heart in December”

Beginnings in apprehensions of the light

The sacred words and the profane words

O I have sung both and I will sing both

I will sing the wave and the rock and the salt

I will make that song tangible in the world and it will be irrefutable

O do not doubt that I will do this for I will do this

I will sing the sacred cities of the world

I will sing the heart’s Kyrie and there will be no end to singing

Kyrie, Kyrie, Christos and Kyrie

What should the heart sing but this?

And I remember that splendid morning when I stood by ancient stones

Singing their names

Uttering primitive words and all words offering Kyrie

O may I always sing such songs

May I always know the notes of spring even when the cherry tree fails to survive into December

Kyrie, Kyrie, Christos and Kyrie

What should the heart sing but this?

Let there be no other song

Let there be no words, profane or sacred, that do not articulate this dilation of the heart

O there is wonderment in December leading to Easter

For there is nothing in the world that does not call out in joy, in praise, in wonderment

And so I take these old words from beginnings that begin before I can name the origin of all things and speak of them as being my Kyrie

Kyrie, Kyrie, Christos and Kyrie

What can the heart sing but this?

Sunrise

The earth sings a winnowing song

Flocks of birds in the air above my head

Song rising in the heart

Song that would sing the bird’s delight and calligraphy of flight and bless in turn every sacred thing upon the earth

O this is its ambition

This is its purpose and claim

This is the task that is life-long and longer that it gives itself as duty as will not shy from

O sing with me as I walk the by-roads of Flanders

Sing all the sorrows transmuted to joy

Sing the desolations as they are transfigured

Sing for the soul’s sweet sake

Sunrise

And the night-dew of memory

I remember, I remember

O give praise to the song and the verb’s authority

Give praise to the sun and all life-affirming light

Give praise to the rose that resides in the heart of Christ

Give praise to the rose of Christ

Hail sun, hail star, hail guiding light

In stone, in tree, in shell

In language uttering all the verbs of praise

Voice of love

Voice of longing

The heart set afire and the world in its longing

And I will sing

Freedom to serve, freedom to sing

Freedom to hold the name of Flanders as sacred and holy

O all thing are holy and every holy thing lives

Rose, rose, rose of all our days

You are the Christ-heart at the heart of all things

Moon-songs drift in your mouth

Clouds pass and you do not understand them yet your bewilderment is the bewilderment of the finite at the infinite and so it is blessed

If I showed you seven doors –which one would you open?

And opening one would you open another?

Your dreams tell me everything I need to know

I sense the curtain of appearance that you seek to look beyond and sensing it can tell you the core and the surface are the one fabric

You don’t believe me? –Then hold a shell to the ear or a stone in the hand and essence and purpose will speak to you

Therefore sing the given world of your vision so that your vision may align with the deeper names and strata of the world

In sacred repetition lies the word

All things extend themselves through the language of the rose and the rose itself is known by how it is named

Name it then with wonderment and joy but do not think that you have contained the essence for the essence is more than your language can name

And yet the Word is known by the word

The Rose by the rose

And the many currents of water by how it flows

All things by their approximations

What you sing is both more and less than what you sing

Therefore be true to that –sing the essence of your language weaving a bright weave about the unnameable core

Only in this, only in this, only in this is the duty and the joy

Glory to the sorrows and the joy’s

To the sparrows wing and the hawk’s glide

Even unto death that all things may resurrect at Easter

Glory to language and the naming verbs

Glory to the first words that speak the first Glory be

And glory to the first response

Glory to every response to the first Glory be

Glory be to the clouds and open sky

To the harvesters that work under their daytime labour

To the corn gathered in sheaves

And glory to all things that sing glory to the world

Glory to every voice raised in praise and celebration

And glory to every unspoken thing

Glory be to the silence contained in every word

And glory be to the word

To the spoken and the not yet articulated

Glory to all things that seek articulation

And glory be to what is then spoken

Glory to night and its wonderment of stars

To the distance we have yet to travel

To the moon and her many names

To all the comely names of the world

O yes

These songs that sing glory for Flanders

Sing glory to the world

There is no city that I will disown nor by-road that I will deny

Here in this hut in the woods I have come to

Fulcrum and Temenos

As if the world began nowhere else

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