The Fool's
Journey
by Ned Hogan, Jr.
Blasting
the doors clean off the hinges of my imagination and hurling them
a hundred yards into the delicate garden surrounding the temple, she
smiled.
Silence like the sounds of an enourmous water fall in my ears began
as she
came forth and out into the neon night and reached for my hand to
take me
to her chariiot. Shadows turned back and lied. Such beautiful lies,
such
Chinese script with delicious sounds, just so these fantastic tales
could
live. And the beach was dust from shell fish still holding on to the
faint
faint moon light that does indeed reach the deepest bottom of the
sea. And
just before our finger tips touched she sighed as she felt me struggle
against the ideas I had about myself, about anything actually. She
stripped me of my armour as i watched her gather the reins and light
as a humming
bird's feather she had me now, caught in her breath. I could feel
my struggling still as we all seemed to fall upwards and my naked
skin
gathered her light. Losing all resistance as i accepted her charge,
I floated, it
seemed, and I began to see everything all around me at once and was
almost
terrified but mostly reassured when I could not find a trace of myself
and
I cannot describe how completely I trusted her because words cannot
go that
far. And I who loved the great laguages more than myself! I who dared
the universe to challenge my now seemingly feeble songs, I who would
swear
that musics were my wings. I could not say a thing. And we travelled
farther
than I could know, then, and her steeds knew me, it seemed, I was
so ready to
believe. So completely ready that they needed no urging and fairly
flew, flew. The music was in their movement. The beautiful strings
of magic
steel running from the bottom of their hooves straight to their hearts.
Their
huge and sacrificial hearts, willing, longing, to die for me, to show
me how
easy it was. But still and even though, I hung on. It must have been
the reflex
of the shell fish lizard that still sheathed my heart. And yes, i
was
still proud to be in her notice. Still amazed that I was there, here,
at all.
And i watched like a hungry ghost searching for what it was that had
put flesh
around me to begin with. And we climbed like living smoke and swirled
in a
running, charging, rythm that fractured itself at each turn that had
to be
chosen at just that unique and special time, chosen, new(er) vector(s),
and so easily and so soon and somehow I knew that the direction, the
moving distances' were the sum of them all we had had. That we had
had to chose
toreach the surface and face the moon. I was mistaken, of course,
but it was
all part of the plan that she had made before time had begun. Yes,
she was
the one who had gotten up and stood straqight and true, only because
that
was what she does after all was done. And then she sung it all into
existence. Again. And I, who had spent all time and more on broken
verse
to try and disperse the nonsense surrounding me like angry surf trying
to
painta church to end or begin the futile search for what could not
be found bylooking, anywhere else, at all. It was as if the moon were
a magnet for
thought and suddenly my mind was empty of anything but her. And it
mattered not that I understood nothing. I danced because i could not
sing and
something, probably her, made sure, sure, that I did not look down.
Yet.
