History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot. - Mark Twain
Predictability gives rise to expectations. - Music theory definition of periodicity
This one was in the works for nearly two months or so – a labor of love, really. It was meant to be completed earlier, but life has a way of intervening. I thoroughly enjoyed researching various mythologies, searching for established symbols that were consistent in their own meanings and still representative of the specific themes and symbols I wished to express.
I intended the poem to stand alone as a story - I find the poetry I enjoy writing and reading the most is not deliberate obscurity or self-indulgent transparency. I prefer layers, subtlety, and characters in motion.
What I found in my research possessed enough synchronicity with my own goings-on to make me appreciate how fresh yet repetitious human experience is. Myths owe their creation to the questions humans have always asked, questions we ask when our lives take unexpected turns, often faster than our thoughts can process and our emotions can cope with.
Myths are the legacy of the writers of the past, before there were pens or brushes to express the dance of ideas and words fed by the heart into the inquisitive mind. They are an assertion of observation, simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive as all histories are.
Similarly, in my own constructions of past events, whether conversations or poetry, I fashion my own mix of fact and fantasy, of embedded reporting and prejudiced fallacy. It is what it is. My job is to make that mix, that batter of processed brain-secretions and verbal vomit, edible and palatable for you, my readers, like a paternal bird
who spits lyrics
like strong spirits,
the sting of a sad
song distilled
in oak barrels
to help keep
the bile below
the throats
of new and old
ghosts who found
hosts drunk
off my ink
flows.
So without further tangents...
Bird Signs and Birth Cycles
©2010 Richard Saunders
Through orchard rows of olive boughs
Surya's chariots approached the stone-wrought
well, arrayed as feathered fans to bellow
the new dawn's heated promises.
Reverberated off the marble blocks
that formed the cistern's entrance steps,
Garudi's bathing serenade entranced reflected
rays, which flit upon the alabaster walls.
Her plaited scarlet locks were suspended
by a verdant band, kept dry as soap-slick
hands applied the lather to her weathered
skin, time not the host, rather, the supplicant.
The ritual of first light complete, her ballad
lilted to its final verse, and with a blaze
of golden plumage, Phoenix beat her wings
of flame and seared into the morning skies.
Across the swells of awakened seas, the
painted cliff-flanks of the divided isle received
the rhythmic beatings and sprays of surf,
like taut hide drums and rattles filled with sand.
Atop the central spire of the island's golden
spine, cap unshrouded by the clasps of mist,
Wakiya perched and surveyed foreign
horizons made visible by the day's clarity.
Rings of bone and copper encircled his neck
and muscled arms infused with inked spirits,
cedar planks secured by stitches ringed by abalone
beads protected his chest during circadian battle.
When black flukes broke the crests of tumbled
waves, his gaze flashed sparks through maritime
eyes; he pulled down the beaked wood helm and
assumed the feathered mantle of the Thunderbird.
Wings growled like torches swept as wards from
circling wolves while Phoenix arced towards the
upper world; her twin polychrome tail feathers'
embers emitted trails of curled black particles.
Through parched and sifted sediments below,
Krishna's footprints wound with cowled intent
around eroded sandstone arches, amrita's
dispossession and a mother's curse still fresh.
Flitted forked tongues failed to detect the burnt
ash smell of her swift and shadowless descent.
Too late her flames were tasted, and Garudi's
talons scorched scaled flesh as she ascended.
Among the yet-born hung from radial
arbor branches, Phoenix retched and swallowed
persistent venom. Her meal choked down, yet
nearly choked upon, she closed heavy lids.
Static skipped from feathers' vanes as thermals
bore the Thunderbird aloft; vapors gathered
as each stroke rumbled with deepened voice,
which camouflaged the violence of his approach.
Sedna's second finger stirred the seas,
spouted victory as spurned suitors' kayaks
breached and shattered under tail-slaps;
their pronged harpoons trailed ropes untethered.
An underworld retreat discouraged not
his plummet; sapient eyesight discerned the
right target. The ocean erupted in a clap as
Sequoia-tall breakers rolled an expanding crater.
Spray-fed cells discharged in jagged bolts
and torrents, then slackened to a drizzle.
Bubbles burst on the churned surface. A swell
rose and broke as Wakiya bore his prize.
At his apex atop the strata, his
claws unclenched; the whale precipitated.
Cliff walls shook as bone split and blubber ruptured.
Thunderbird alit and picked at the carcass.
With swirls of unfurled wings, Wakiya climbed with
chunks of marbled flesh clenched by gnarled claws.
At the crown of cumulonimbi, beats
slackened as his cry reverberated.
Tucked into a fletched arrowhead, he nosed
over and dove. Wisps of vapor rippled
at his passing, then rattled as the roar
of displaced air echoed across the water.
Garudi awoke abruptly. Her senses
sought the source of her disturbance, but
for naught, until the great tree's branches swayed
in turbulence from beyond the horizon.
As shadows prowled the island's shores, she
soared into the territory of
her quarry, whose brashly touted prowess
was loud enough for her to overhear.
Against embossed relief of chiseled
peaks impaling scarlet vapor glaciers at
dusk's last light, each spied their adversary,
opposing eyes agleam with spark and flame.
Thunderbird broke as Phoenix flared, enraged,
engagement's egg astir with turns reversed
as vectored tail evaded claw and pecker
heat-seekers in draw-less, stalemated pursuit.
Altitudes increased as pinions pumped,
talons grasped their analogues and beak
bit beak. Frenzied flames and updrafts fed
the rising funnel of their firestorm.
Impedances repealed, Wakiya
amplified his inherent charge,
in preparation for a final, draining
surge to incapacitate his match.
All fuel committed to the blaze, Garudi's
embers glowed like broiled ghosts with sheets heat-bleached,
mutual immolation of her foe
and present form her only explication.
At the boundary of space and cloud, with
sacrificial coup des graces embraced,
wingbeats stalled and shifted. Fingers grasped
and grappled, legs enwrapped, gaze met gaze.
In shoreline villages and orchards below,
on coastal deck and forest paths, necks arched
to catch the aftermath of the explosion,
nocturnal habits interrupted by the flash.
Tranquil skies held naught but vapor trails,
morning unblemished save for far off rumbles.
Yet in the grimy folds of an earthy, ashen nest,
slumbering coals smoldered as they awaited birth.
* * *
As always, comments, criticisms, explications and questions are all welcome. If you like what you read, or don't, let me know.
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