The Uninitiated

Jos van Wunnik, Fire hill - earth painting 2 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

These are the days
That I admire:
For it is in a rage
That the entrance
To another
World exists, and alone
Our limbs must bear
The heavy load—
But what do I perceive?
A man beset
By lasting wounds
Away from favored ground
Will turn when fear
Overtakes him.
But when vague remembrance,
Through light-minded
Glances, lets him
Speak with many voices,
He reappears,
Bearing counsel
From the wise.
                         So loved ones
Are reproduced
In each other
And what is far comes close
When it recedes;
But if they still
Live on by roasting corn
Or picking nuts
From autumn leaves,
Vanished lay those fragrant
Embers that smoked
Upon the earth.

Before the red sunrise
Could catch my steps
Upon the dew,
Across the quiet hills
They came, where sun
Is last to leave
And fog is first to move,
And a solemn,
Inward marching
Awaits the moon.
                              Seers
They in events
That happen, share
No future, nor the good
Or the evil
Of what exists,
But with what no longer
Remains, perceive
In accordance
From those powers
That incline to defend
Excitation,
A great repose.
So as trees that rise up
Through the air hold
The wind that breeds
Them, are we attendant
To the sultry haze
Of sun and storm,
That with look and warmth guides
Them to us.
                              Near
The drummer’s fire
Will each his song at last
Conceive in heart
And breathe white smoke
Upon his youthful days;
And then, joining
Arm in arm, sweat
Themselves in darkened earth
And lay their dreams
In river-beds.
Only then by the light
Of morning see
They another fate,
Where only then through pain
Of what they held
Superior
Will leave a fairer gift
By what they chased.