A Thousand Faces

The old man comes down from the mountains
his hair filled with brambles and
full and wind-flowing like a fine robe
and the old man comes down from the mountains
his hair filled with brambles and
full and wind-flowing like an intricate tapestry
the work of a thousand dancing needles
and the old man comes down from the mountains
his skin wrinkled and laced by concentric networks
overlaid and moving to fine filigree
and the old man comes down from the mountains
to the north where he has been meditating
with the lost tribes and feasting on lotus roots
and pine berries and the old man comes down
eyes flaming with the knowledge of bestial altars
thoughts rich with the forbidden drugs and
the forgotten dances which swell the veins
spawn of Dionysus and the old man comes down
from the north with ice white teeth and
huge hands leaping from his loose sleeves
and the old man comes down from the mountains
with an intensity almost painful and he refuses
our questions and will not speak with us.  

Finally the father figure
self onto self
begin the same   no difference
like the cycles of the sun
that clock between her legs
the warm juices of her mouth   no difference
begin a soft seed breaking the rhythm of the womb
the chain is detonated   no difference
each cell embryonic in its brother
liquid and linked in geometric precision
the woman grows heavy with child   no difference
the birth trauma is completed with a metallic
tour de force as the razor slits the dancing umbilical
no difference   no difference

And the old man comes down from the mountains
disguised as a pedlar in the night
and I follow him along the shore and
ask how one knows the true self
and he gathers the mottled and ribbed shells
to string seaweed necklaces and I ask
how one knows the true self and he chants
mantras to the growling white-tipped water
and I demand how one knows the true self
and he dances in the rising tide
until the wet sand clings to his feet
in soft clotty bundles and as morning
light edges across the beach slantwise
and I fall drunken from sleeplessness
at last he whispers that one knows
the true self like a stream running.

So I follow the stream high into the hills
and higher still in the mountains and
at its fount there is a garden with a temple
and at the bottom of the garden
a cypress tree is standing
and on the walls of the temple
its green jade walls
there are a thousand faces
each of them my own.

Appeared in my collection Alchemical Texts