A Victor’s Psalm (chapter 3)
(chapter three: Primal Light)
MOLTING TIME
My wife spotted five voracious little larvae, after we had given up to look for snakes instead. Tiny cylindrical eating machines, banded yellow, black and white. They start their feast with their own egg shells, then move on the everlasting dessert of bitter milkweed, pausing only to shed skins, make more room. We kept them in our homemade caterpillar condominium, filled with plenty of milkweed fodder which they methodically munched like flat corn on the cob, from edge to center, dropping chlorophyll packed pellets from one end while stuffing the other, fattening from rice grain size to fully large as my little finger.
Do butterflies yearn for their caterpillar youth, incessant chewing, swallowing, peristalsis, excretion? For existence as walking alimentary canals, concerned only with elementary existence? Do they fondly remember milestones of each skin split, dropped to land on green manure piles below? Or that last agony of that last skin, as they hung suspended on silk tethers, thrashing convulsively, till free green chrysalis jewels shone, bearing flecks of gold?
At work I hear a child crying, a five year old who swears better than most grownups, sometimes singing obscenities in her little girl voice. When she’s finished kicking, biting, scratching, she cries for Mommy like any little girl. Most days she runs to give me a big hug. I wonder what he’ll be when it is time for her last agonized molting?
I wonder what I’ll be? In my caterpillar youth I never dreamed of such vast skies so far above my munching. Chrysalis cases turn transparent before hatching, showing splendid promises of veined wings. With wife and kids I’ve seen such transformations. Before such things I never dreamed I’d own the strength and hope to make the skies my home.
A VICTOR’S PSALM
Blessed be the Lord and Lady. They nourish and protect me. Through growing things they counsel me, cool waters sing their praise. Their climbing trails, both smooth and rocky, let pilgrims know their grace.
So, though evil powers have scarred and chastened me, fear will not rule me. Your love and strength inspire me to grow in love each day.
You show the bounty of your grace in the midst of evildoers. You honor my soul with Light. Your Light shines through me. Surely I will study your ways all the days of my life. I will abide in your love, forever.
GATEWAY
Waiting in the dark mouth of the cold cave, considering the boulder before him… wholly human, more so than any other, he touches the wound in his side, sharply inhales, hesitating to move past the rock insulating him from agony inflicted by his would-be killers. Far off, he hears faint screams of children unable to come to him, muted by the cold comfort of granite. Eyes full, he breathes deep, steps forward. The stone gives up its substance before him as he passes beyond, into his kingdom.
YOU’RE SO IN TOUCH WITH YOUR FEELINGS (FOR A MAN)
A weekend of miracles in Maine again… a men’s retreat; I’ve been to six. This time I was the cook. It wasn’t onions made the tears flow, though. Wonders, over and over again. We’ll never get too used to them.
Something draws our fellowship together, sober addicts, abuse survivors, compulsive whatevers, wounds deep, their bearers unable to cry for fear of never ending tears; solitary supermen, kryptonite cages glowing poison prisons for our hearts. So many Gary Coopers
on a search for their High Noon, craving warmth while dreading doom. It’s time for shackles to be broken. The breaking of the spells is overdue, as sure as river ice beneath the sun of Spring breaks to drift downstream while melting.
In the room above our bodies shape a sacred circle which holds our secrets and our spirits, as we begin to tell our tales of how we hid our souls to hide them from destruction, like so many things hidden so well we could not find them or even remember
what they were; these tales are more than words. They conjure up terrors of boys beaten or raped or abandoned, saved and cursed with anesthetics so they could bear the weight and pain entire of family sacrifices made with bloody hatchets, raised to their own children for a vile god
who is not Yawheh but a cruel pretender convincing grownups they do no wrong to mutilate the love, lives, hopes of childhood. These tales are more than words, more than screams, more than bellows rage tears wails despair grief release, men kicking pounding having long forbidden outrage,
weeping in the arms of each other, many strong arms cradling each in turn, singing, lifting on high through the ceiling to the sky, laughing at last before the tears of each have even dried. These tales are wonders, like salmons jumping falls, or women giving birth, or men planting seeds,
daring to love each other whom they feared a few long hours ago. So power flows, fear released, broken beneath the warmth of sons of Man, who grew into their strength all unawares that such a mighty current moved within their bodies, while flowing soul to soul to soul to soul….
The demon lies which tyrannized existence drift powerless as we love in our short time. Goodbyes are said as we each light our candles. We blow the candles in to burn inside each man. We are possessed by our own holy spirits, who won’t forget or let us forget them.
“You’re a miracle, you know it?” “Takes one to know one.” “You keep on showing us…” “Who’d a thunk a bunch of addicts could be angels in each other’s lives?”
CHILDLIGHT
First light. The children sleep beneath the leaves, curled up warmth against warmth. Sparrow and chickadee do not wake them, safe, sleeping sound, with friends of fur, scale and feather keeping watch as they heal.
Staccato drumming flicker echoes in yellow shafts of light. Greenchild and Martha Jane stir, make small noises, push up past their dark night. Eyes open, wondering, they see each other, leaves in their hair, smiling.
THROUGH A MIST, TRULY
Somehow through glass lens, chemical retina, she caught that image moment between night fog and daybreak, when details barely clouded over to reveal true shapes of mountains, trees, water, even air, hanging heavy, wet, cool, waiting for sunlight’s gift of warm release, clear vision.
Simply framed, her gift is a window through walls, beckoning one’s soul.