“Our Holy Mother, Sister, Brother”
In my reconstruction, the Eleusis Pilgrimage
enacted a story of Demeter, as Mother Nature,
with her teenage daughter and infant son,
wandering in search of a home.
Eleusis in Wikipedia .. .. {Here}
This is also a section of a long “symphonic” blog post .. .. {Here}
It always is an age of travel and rest, always is.
I’ve read in scholars’ books, thruout the whole long generations
.. Of Classic Age plus Hellenistic Age, of Ancient Athens, Greece,
.. .. indeed a great many years spanned two Ages of Human History,
.. .. in a busy region of the world, this in Athens, Greece..
On one of the city’s old main streets,
where you walk beside the Old Walls
and at a turning find an urbanized height,
find a low ancient hill lies beneath the walls,
stands beneath the paving at your feet.
And there a wide wooden gate,
Wide but seeming huge and great from the beauty of its shape,
Under an arch of painted sculpture stands a wide wooden gate,
.. me speaking as if we are there then, you and I.
The gate shut, its postern standing open dawn into dusk,
every day but Marching Day, for such as us to visit in if wish,
but instead I bid you turn and look along the way a moment.
This old wide street beside the wall turns right,
I say on Marching Morning this gate opens full out,
Our Mother’s Basket Lady and her walking party first,
year’s main clergy see, walking as Basket Lady and family,
then the Statuary Cart rolls out and comes into the way,
The waiting crowd release into the sky their greatest cheer !!
I point, That turn, Then a long slow straight slope to
Downtown Marketplace, where the whole city waits !!
But luckily, right there, Old Gate to the Inland Road !!
I got wised up, by a friend since sadly deceased, that
The Wise gather right here, early, Marching Morning.
My second Athens Year, what, eight years ago now.
But was I loud? Did I speak loudly just now? Too loudly?
I look around uneasily. This is not an empty street.
That year, first months, i made inquiries of prostitution
for a living, i made inquiries, did. But a voice right out
– it was Our Brother’s voice protecting- said NO right
out clearly, so i made inquiries of that phenomena,
so here we are now.
Did I actually utter that shout just now? The shout of standing
in a chilly morning, nothing on your back but one shirt your
own rough clumsy dirty hands, of the cheapest cloth,
And our total silence as Our Mother’s Basket Daughter and
her reverend family pass, and the Statuary Cart’s burly chaps
come pulling stepping, burly shoving the harness like horses.
Burly, burly, chanting drone of FRIENDLY POWER emanating
from their singing throats as they draw out the Cart,
starting home for Mother’s Farm and Hearth,
beyond the distant hills,
above a bay very different than Athens’ noisome port.
.. We are both Sicilians,
you and I, cousins, close cousins,
babes, we kissed like little twins do, they say.
Me in Athens ten years, you corresponded, sailed
cheap from Syracuse in a cargo hammock like me,
and sling your hammock now by me in a shack of
a shop I keep in a Sicilian neighborhood.
We’ve planned this conversation, to be on this spot,
for years, you and I, good cousin, by slow
letter and I fear now my enthusiasm
may shuddering overtake me.
DID I SPEAK LOUD JUST NOW?? This is not an empty street.
IT WILL NOT DO being seen ONE OF THE SHOUTERS
who come into Holy Temple SINGING OUT
and shoving their HICK RELATIVES
around from corner to post.
But i feel the cheat in this thought
and hide my face from you in my hand,
good cousin.
You see how i live, i live like a rat,
like the rats in the holds we both survived
to get here.
How can a being of such filth experience,
let alone describe to a fellow rat, poor friend,
the Astonishment revealed when The Cart
pulls into the way, the Astonishment that
led us on all day, until they veil it, when
having summited the ridge of hills.
No poet can describe it, their poets say.
Not even in the whispering we’ve done
in the weeks you’ve been recovering did i try
to say to you the astonishing glare of VISION LIGHT
beaming from every fervent eye in a packed crowd,
beaming from every human eye,
Vision Light infusing into every color that there is,
from the sudden bloom of every perfume scent,
from the heaps and heaps of flower decorations
over-loaded on the Cart,
heaps such you might think the three passengers
could drown in flowers, the drunken perfume scent
of that, but then your eyes open, LOOK!
Within the shifting light and shade of
the billowing rainbow awnings of the Cart!
For in there strikes the light of Human Visions!
Into these shaped stones, light of all these Human
eyes together strikes, calling in the Sacred Twin we
each have, it striking out from its, from our, Divinity.
Such is our faith and so i’ve seen with these eyes!
A huge flame in those three figures every time I looked!
it’s called the Re-Igniting of Our Mother’s Fire in camp,
so long ago, in a time of gods, Our Mother’s camp
first night arriving to her forest hill above the sea,
long ago in a time of gods, yet where we are gone today,
and at last we all to be welcomed thru at Two Ladies Gate
by torchlight, that night, and i, and all about,
will lift you when you stumble.
HOW CAN THIS BE SAID TO YOU ??
YOU HAVE NOT BEEN, it is off season,
months of survival to wait.
But we are poets, are we not you and i?
You come to me, to where I’ve sunken, sitting on the pavement,
leaning back slack on the big Wide Gate,
and my face hidden in my hand.
But we are poets, you and i, you kneel beside and grasp
my chin like in your fist, and pull it up so I
know your beaming grin of happiness.
Oh Cousin, What Is This??
A Slobber Kiss !!??! You don’t let go, Oh cousin, what is this??
Another slobber kiss, i wipe it off,
you grinning shout “!!FOR COURAGE!!”
Good Cousin, (you demand) are we not a family now?
So i shout it in your face.. !!One For All And All For One!!
But still there’s so much more i cannot speak.
Speaking of the half-penny for the Student’s Fund
i bring most months,
and of the “Gratitude For Safe Arrival” clay figurine in your pocket,
which i helped you purchase in the shops for less than that,
me speaking of those things i think i, the further
forward one of us, might say..
O let us be
like mighty brothers and tender sisters both.
Such is our faith as you will see when we sit side by side
in the temple of Our Mother’s Fire Hearth,
for i have seen that with these eyes and it is good,
so cousin, let us be the Holy Family of us.
But there’s no need of me to say such things.
You thinking of exactly those thoughts,
but you the one finds words.
You’d pull my nose. I know you would.
Drill a finger in my belly crying like a robber,
“That Students’ Half-Penny In Your Pocket Sir,
that’s my budget as much as yours.”
So I’d drag you in and thru the postern of the gate,
not you slow but me dragging fast, or you shove by,
find yourself in Sacred Space in surprise, as many say is best.
Let’s stroll the lovely Kitchen Garden first.
When our souls hush, then the Student Fund collection box,
we’ll think, make pure wishes, both hold the coin to drop it in.
That’s when the steps to Mother’s Altar one by one,
there is a very nice way to bow, we who’ve been instructed now,
set up our Fervent Gratitude for this arrival on it, light a lamp.
Then, right below the steps, on the grass,
unpack the beer and biscuits we have brought,
dine our souls’ repast together,
gaze up thru the leafy branches of the pomegranate tree,
and try to see all the meanings in the light.
It always is an age of travel and rest, it always is.
And that there is a practical use of good gods.
( Here is the end of this narrative poem.-)
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