Classic Poem

I have entered into the Desert,
The place of desolation;
Where is great silence.
I have come to the Immutable One
In her sanctuary.
She sits on a throne of Light,
Her hands serenely clasped;
Her lips tranquil as Dawn;
Her eyes solemnly questioning.
She has endured the scourge of Chaos;
Defiant of gods and Time;
Defiant and fearless.
I have come to the lean and stricken land
That I may meet my soul face to face;
Naked, as the Desert is naked;
Bare, as the great silence is bare;
Of all gods fearless.

I will question the Silent Ones who have gone
And are forgotten.
I will question those who will come after me
By whom I also shall be forgot.
As the Desert is defiant of all gods,
So am I defiant of all gods,
Shadows of ourselves, cast upon a cliff
By the candle we hold in our hand.
As a helpless child follows the hand of its mother,
So I put my hand into the hand of the Inevitable,
The Everlasting, the Relentless, the Merciful.
I have come to lose myself in immensity
And know my littleness;
To lie in the lap of my mother and be comforted.
I am alone, yet not alone.
My soul is my companion above all companions.

These are the signs of the Desert:
A buzzard serenely circling high in air;
Alone, between two infinities,
As I am alone between two infinities;
A juniper-tree on a rocky hillside,
Dark signal from afar,
Calling the weary to rest in its shade;
A monastery for the flocks of little birds
Which by night hurry across the hot, dry sand
And hide happily from the heat of the day;
A basaltic-cliff, embroidered with lichens;
Green, orange and yellow;
The work of a great painter,
Careless in the splash of his brush.
Timid antelope come to lie in its shade;
Doves build their nests in the crevices
And mourn to the rising sun, the coming moon.
The sage-brush ocean breaks against
A far coast. Where purple mountains dream.
White alkali-flats shimmer a mirage of blue lakes,
Which constantly retreat from the pursuer.
The mirage paints rivers on the sky.
Cool are the willowy banks;
The thirsty ears can almost hear
The lapping of the waters,
But they flee away mockingly,
Leaving the thirsty to perish.
I lie down on the bosom of the Desert,
Sifting warm sand through my fingers,
And to me it seems that Life has its mirages also.
And these are the signs of the Desert:
A stagnant water-hole trampled with hoofs;
And about it the bleached bones of those
Who came too late.
Waltzing with the horizon moves a yellow whirlwind.
Suddenly it runs up from earth to sky.
Suddenly it fades and is gone.
Far out in the desert are blocks, and walls of obsidian
Where the wild tribes fashioned their arrowheads:
The ground with fragments strewn,
Just as they dropped them.
The strokes of the makers are undimmed
Through the dumb and desperate years;
But the hunters have gone forever.
The Desert cares no more for the death of these
Than for the death of the armies of huge black crickets,
Which crawl across; death their obstinate
And fixed objective; as do we all.
Dazzling in the sun, whiter than snow, I see the bones
Of those who have existed as I now exist.
The bones are here. Where are they who lived?
I know that they were my brothers, and I too
Am less than the dial-shadow of this rock:
For the shadow returns forever.

Silence, invincible; impregnable;
Compelling the soul to stand forth
And be questioned.
Night overwhelms me.
Coyotes bark to the indifferent stars.
And I look up to them,
Knowing to the stars my life is not
More valuable than that of the coyote.
Not more valuable than the little, delicate flowers of the Desert,
Which, like a breath, catch the hem of Spring
And are gone.

I have come into the Desert because my soul
Is sad and athirst
As the Desert is sad and athirst.
My soul, which is the soul of all;
Universal, not different;
Athirst for a little knowledge
To make beautiful the path;
A little certitude.
The waters entice the gracious and benevolent grass,
Willows and poplars, so that in the bewildering heat
Of the day we may lie in their shadow
Soothed as by the hands of quiet women,
Listening to the discourse of running water;
Voices of happy women, exchanging confidences of love.
And the rivers run away from the mountains that bore them.
Them; stealing into the bare bosom of the Desert;
The willows following after, waving silvery hands
Calling to them, " Run not so fast away.
" Weave for us a green carpet in a barren place. "
The birds come to them, timidly lifting their bills
To the sky, praying " Build us a safe fortress. "
The little rivers are the shining water-bearers
For all the shy things athirst in the Desert;

But at last they marry the far-spreading marshes;
The tule-marshes, sanctuaries for herons, ducks, swans and geese,
Wonderful bronze ibis, iridescent, and the shy egret,
Whose filmy plume were their death warrant
But for the vast somnolent guardian marshes.
Here too on their tall pyramid nests
Brood the stately cranes which, when the year fades,
Circle high in the perfect blue,
Calling for the Southland.
Who is their monitor?
Who is their pilot?
The mountains belt the Desert with amethyst
And girdle her with opal;
They lift their proud aspiring tops
Into the vault of space,
Above our tribulation and unanswered fret.
Their castles are set upon foundations of sapphire.
My soul goes out to them as a bird flies to her secret nest.
They are the abode of peace, the vexed soul's solace.
Behind them Creation slumbers,
A naked god, fluent limbed.
His head is pillowed on a riven rock, molten in chaos.
Shadowy eyed he dreams of greater gods to come.
Who shall awake him?
Flowers will awake him with tender fingers
And the music of tremulous bells.
Flowers that bloom joyously,
Careless whether they be seen, or praised.
They do not weary themselves with questioning,
But blossom unto life perfectly,
And unto death perfectly,
Leaving nothing unsaid.
They spread a voluptuous carpet for the feet of the Wind
And make his wild locks sweet with perfume.
To the frolic Breezes which lightly overleap them,
They fragrantly whisper:
" Stay a moment, Brother; plunder us of our passion.
" Our day is short, but our beauty is everlasting. "
Never have I found place or season without beauty:
Neither the sea, where the white stallions
Champ their foamy bits and rear against their bridles;
And the floor of the world is laid in purple;
Nor the Desert, sitting scornful, apart,
An unwooed Princess, careless, indifferent;
Spreading her garments wonderful beyond estimation;
Embroidering continually her mantle.
She sits upon a throne of gold
In the Hall of Silence.
She insists upon humility.
She insists upon meditation.
She insists that the soul be free.
She requires an answer.
She demands the final reply to thoughts
Which cannot be answered.
For the yearning of the soul will never be satisfied.
Yet as rivers run to the sea and are lost,
The soul will question forever.
The Desert is a nun withdrawing behind her veil,
Grey, mysterious, meditative, unapproachable.
She is a courtesan, blazing with jewels,
Enticing with a bold smile; adjusting her raiment negligently,
Showing her brown thighs beautiful and naked.
Her body is tawny with the eagerness of the sun
And her eyes are pools shining in deep canyons.
She is cruel, inviting her victims,
Restlessly moving her wrists bound with rubies,
And her ankles bound with topaz.
Her golden breasts flash with opals.
She slays those who fear her and seek to run away
But runs her hand lovingly over those who dare;
Soothing with a voluptuous caress.
Lying on her floor richly carpeted she displays
The dazzlry of her diadems
And toys with the stars for a coronet,
Smiling inscrutably.
She is a beautiful swart woman who lights the sun
For a torch and sets the high cliffs as sentinels.
She draws morning and evening as curtains before her chamber,
And her breasts are the evening and the day stars.
She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent,
Indifferent to wooers.
The sun is her servitor, the stars her attendants;
Running before her.
She sings a song unto her own ears,
Solitary, but sufficient;
The song of her being.
She is a naked dancer, dancing upon
A pavement of porphyry and pearl,
Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded.
She wears the stars upon her bosom
And braids her hair with the constellations.

I know the Desert is beautiful.
I have lain in her arms.
She has kissed me.
Now I have come again to lie on her breast
And breathe the air of primal conditions.
I have come out from the haunts of men;
The struggle of wolves upon a carcass,
To be melted in Creation's crucible
And be made clean.
From the sky — from the earth, from the great cliffs
That once were fire, from her mysterious Chamber
I hear her voice patient and relentless as the sweep of Antares:
" Only Man has defied his Mother
" And for his own destruction
" Has set up idols of ignorance. "
I will not climb the peaks of Morning
And, like an exultant lark, shoot my song
Down to the shadow where the millions drudge
And the children are born to degradation.
But as a mourner I will lie upon the bare
And barren bosom of the primeval Mother,
Groaning a dirge to the morrow without hope.
I cannot sing of Beauty, for Man has put a scar
Upon her forehead and twisted her exquisite limbs.
I cannot sing of Truth, for Man has never yet
Perceived the flashing of his eyes.
I cannot sing of Justice, for frowning Justice stands
On a great height, scornful, like a dark cloud
Brooding on a mountain, ready to strike.
I cannot sing of Freedom, for Freedom is beyond
This present night; a star
Kissing the edge of the world
Which when we fly toward it is ever further away.
Poets have sung of Freedom, but never
Has Man pressed those pale lips to his.
Poets have sung of Justice, but Justice
Is of the understanding mind; the pitying soul;
The relentless equality
Which the suicidal ape has not yet conceived.
Poets have sung of Beauty,
But who has been folded to the resilient
Perfection of her bosom?
Poets have sung of Truth, but who
Has caught the lightning of his eyes,
Or heard the rushing of his wings,
Shadowy, appearing, disappearing, ever retreating,
As the mirage of the Desert which lures to the glittering
Death-spaces beyond, advancing, never overtaken?
Who would hold Truth must gather up
The moonlight from the sea.
The majesty of the Desert terrifies me:
Vast, vague, empty; still as infinite space beyond the stars,
So that I hear the murmur of my heart
And am afraid.
I look up to the sky which is eternal,
And down to the sand which is eternal,
And I am afraid of my littleness.
I pitifully know the brevity of my existence, which is
The passing of a raven's shadow across white alkali.
I salute the little mottled lizard intently watching me.
I salute you, Brother. You are my brother
But I am greater than you; than all else greater.
To myself I am greater than the Desert, or the Earth.
Or the far-removed, alien stars; curiously peering.
I am in a mysterious way, part of Eternity
As well as of Time; as Time is part of Eternity.
When I have saluted Death and taken him by the hand,
I shall be absolved and know no more;
Even as these white skulls and ribs know no more.
Nevertheless, I am now a part of Time
And shall be part of Eternity,
Indestructibly as the sun or the stars.
The Desert is so pitiless, I am afraid.
I am afraid of its bigness.
Its indifference frightens me.
I am alone, an atom thrown out
From Eternity into Time;
Allotted to do my part.
I will do my part, and it shall be my own.
I will refuse to be moulded in the common mould;
To step regularly according to custom; or order;
To measure myself among monotonous patterns;
Making foolish gestures, approved by the herd
I pity and despise or ordered by
The Masters I pity and despise.
I will cast off my fetters and, even in rags,
Like a street singer, I will sing my song.
And it shall be my own song.
I will wander imperiously, destroying the paths,
The moulds and the patterns.