42.

Becoming the Hawk Divine

Imagine the ancient one speaking as if you were his dream—old lips grown yellow and hard, dry as bone, his mouth a beak that crushes words like seed and after a long flight drops them to grow again in a field left untended. Imagine his eyes, amber orbs that search and catch upon the shallow breaths of a mouse stirred by restless dreams of corn. Hollow bones become swift wings and in his dark, finely feathered skin you ride through all the lost days. Above blinding white cliffs you soar and find yourself amid rocks crumpled like paper, rocks sharp as knives, rocks heart-breakingly real as breasts. Blessed are the old ones. They shall die and soar above themselves, new men again, swift birds, strong oxen, gentle flowers nodding.

The ways have been arranged that I might know my own passage. I have loved the light and followed it easily and with joy. And I struggled to learn how to lie with the darkness where all the wrong things happened for the right reasons.

The ways have been arranged. I circle the heads of dancing girls, my feathers tremble in their fans; I fly above the smoking kilns where brown bread was baked and clay vessels were made strong or shattered. I circle the houses where I laughed and wept, dreamed and made healthy children. Through me the past flows like blood. Vultures gobble the sin with the flesh. Let the devils who beat an old man with their fists lie in a grave of worms. Let bad debts be repaid by the blow of sticks. Let the sun that rode on my back light my face. Let the earth be pounded by dancing feet on slender ankles. Let the young, white ram come to the river to drink and admire his new horns in the water. Let night fall with all the finality of death and I shall see a single star. Though the crescent moon pass through me like a slender knife, though it touch me, I shall live.

Then as men celebrate the coming light, I shall pass into darkness. I shall wander the night stumbling and falling. I shall embrace the great nothing—a shadow so deep it encompasses all, unseen but felt in the hearts of men as the sorrow, the loss, the death. And I shall bless the void for it prepares me, leaves me empty so that light may enter.

In my weakness the dark shall cover me with the red cloth of death and the hungry leopard shall pass by as if I were less than shadow. I shall hide even as the gods hide behind the veil of nothingness, listening. Though they hear men call in their troubles, they come not; yet silent, beyond the veil their shining fingers move, weaving the cloth of destinies. Even great gods are bound by law not to interfere with a man's own becoming. Therefore, we die and lie alone awaiting transformation.

The gods care not if you rage and thrash your breast. They hear not words but thoughts. They speak not to ears. Be silent then and let them speak to the god within. Be quieter still and let the will speak through you.

Oh ancient one who names and dreams the ways, give me air alive. Grant me the revolution, the change, the great doubling-back-on-itself. Let our hearts' truth entwine like terror and tenderness. Awaken me with tender dreams as if with your mouth against my ear, your hot words entered me. Let me know the great change and the small ones that I may see your hand on all things—the frog, the lotus and me. May all the world envelop me that I might know the conversation of wind or the willful flight of a bee, that I might become the song of earth and turn again to greening. Let me walk through the fields sure of the ways that brush my thighs gentle as flowers.

Let one song rise from the universe. Let the souls of all things tremble as the wind stirs blades of grass. I will sit in the midst of its blue wonder as if that song were struck on my bone and sinew. Let the ground beneath me shake. Let the gates of heaven open pouring down silvered hours. Let me walk under the spell of a dark moon in the light of my own divinity. May I live in clouds and growing corn and in the rock bed or the rising river. May I fall like rain and rise like sedge. May I soar the empty place of sky like a hawk whose wing tips brush the gold and crimson reaches of dawn. May I gaze on the knot of eternity wherein the threads of our fates are tied—man to woman, fire to water, earth to sky. May I lie down with magic and hear the secrets of days and weeks in her kiss. May I spend long years talking with the fig trees. May I speak with he who speaks our destinies. May I walk in thunder and rain with the god of change. May I travel the bright paths even into darkness, for I am a sharp and shining thing. By the light within me I shall see the burdens and joys of love. I shall be like the shining falcon wandering in and out of heaven, like the white ibis in the river gazing on fishes.

I change as the old ones before me changed, constantly and with rejoicing. I live not in the memory of my bones, but in the fresh grass of the fields. I am not what I was nor yet all I will be. I am an old man grown young. To me was given the truth of the ways, the swallows and the fishes. If I please I walk among the living cities, going along the warm and dusty paths I've known, unseen as the air that rocks between two sisters, visible as light. I am as worthy of love as truth—that I exist is truth itself. My body is but wax and wick for flame. When the candle burns out, the light shines on elsewhere. What matters is the word whispered at birth, the spark flown from infinite fire. I breathe inside the bright word, the truth, the circle. I burn like a secret in the heart of the mountain. I am an idea wrapped in flesh that sprang from the belly of sky. I am light from the bright vortex of fire from which even first light came, and that which made the maker of gods and men, lights the black world in the blink of an eye. In my joyous and eternal changings, I come to know that that eternally unchanges, for in my becoming I change into everything and what changes not is all already. That fire has made me glorious and given me glad weeping; I, who sprang from the lashes of its eye, am longing to go home, to rest in the fire that gave me birth, to count myself among the absolute that dwells in the numberless one.

I know the language of birds, the augury of dawn and the light of days. I know the melody of splendor before the dream of time began. Before my birth huge gods and strange beasts whispered. It was said I should fly from the eye of sun, even that I should die and my belly swarm with worms, that I should soar like a hawk, the snake writhing in my claws. All I am and shall be were fixed at birth by the cry of birds. And I shall live forever.

And I shall live forever.

Before the hawk sailed beneath the moon, before magic made the word, before Isis birthed her orphaned son, I flourished in the mirrored sea. I grew strong, then waxed old, bent as the crescent moon, an ancient man full of wise dreaming. I ruled the night with its thousand lights and brought the stars to rest behind the shadow of hills. As time passed and I grew from lightness to dark, I learned the power of hidden things. Like a hawk I sailed beyond the known into the realm of what must be imagined. I learned the power and shape of sleep and molded silence into dream. These dreams I filled with hearts and minds that they might love, and they became men, myself. Who knows how long these changes took—an hour, or a thousand years. I was long in my dreaming beneath the earth. Time had no reach. Two lions lay at my feet devouring the children of the past and future. When the dream was done, like a hawk I rose and two clouds closed behind me, then it was as if I'd never left the sky. Birds sang. Lilies opened their spathes. On the air I heard the word and felt the wheel of change. I learned to read the movement of clouds and walk the roads in blessed forgetfulness that all roads might seem travelled fresh.

I, who took possession of hidden things, learned the language of hawks. I was given the eyes and heart of the bird, the power of the cry and claw. In the years that passed, in the wind about my head, I heard the voices of the old ones. “The past and future dream us, lie on our bodies like skin that we might pass the days with grace. To us were given all the ways and the obligation to travel. To us were opened all the roads of heaven, all the tunnels in earth and the channels of the sea. Among the dead and the living, by these same words have we all travelled. Together we walk a single path into the heart of the infinite.”

Now the treasures of the world lie before me—the jeweled wings of love and the gold bracelets of days. The crown of existence rests on my head, crystal stars in a lapis sky. Tempted neither by terror nor wonder, I take earth's simple offerings: a handful of seeds, the air in my nose and the rays of light on my belly. In time I'll fly in and out of time. In time I'll come to the house of magic. I shall pass into the unity of fire and know dreams and colors and secrets. For now it is enough to roam the air that separates earth from sky. I do not hurry my destiny. I neither long for history nor forget it.

I am the hawk, glorious hawk, soaring hawk beneath the sun. Bands of light wreathe my head. I own the property of day. On swift wings I've flown to the edges of the world, cutting a path to the far reaches of heaven. Back I fly and hover over splendid fields. I've grown old and wise as a god. The sky wraps her arms about me; the earth kisses my feet. The goddesses tear their veils for me and I walk into the eye of fire. Ah, the things I see when the flame bursts forth. I look on the dust of life with eyes of fire. I rise from dust and spin. Life opens its mouth and swallows me. And I live to walk familiar streets, see old friends, tell their children stories. I speak of the journey through blood into paradise—how the gods of the other world tried to turn me from the path that held my destiny, how I travelled through night in a dim confusion of stars, how desert beasts tore my heart with their claws, how I lived and my spirit grew until I felt no pain even in the teeth of the great devourer, how I stood inside the heart of fire, burning and was made new. I am that bright fire. It lives in me. Lift your faces that you might see.

I was given the heart of the sky, the soul of a hawk, the wisdom of stars. I become what I must to understand each season that passes in the heart of a man—jealousy, rage, bitterness, hope, trust, ease…And I know that change is a difficult task, a dying, a dreaming, an awakening.

Alone I make my way along the bright paths of the valleys, through the cooling shadows to the mountain of regret. In dark caves I hear the howling of dogs or children, while far off the yellow sands blow and young bulls clash horns in distant fields. I listen to the sounds of life's reckoning. “Silence,” I cry and the night is still. It's so quiet I can hear the long grasses the cattle have eaten turning into dreams. Then before dawn, before the last star fades and the first swallow cries, I feel light enter my fingers. How even everything that has changed, changes.

What a long road it seems I've travelled. The beauty and terror of it! The crying of the gods or children, the yellow flowers calm in the last gold light. The names of all the powers seem shouted out by blades of grass, by clouds, by rocks underwater, by the darkness in the mouths of caves, by dead men under the burning sand and in the hearts of mountains. Let me hurry to them then as a man hurries home to rest after a long day in the fields. I've gathered and tied my life to my waist like the pelts of magical animals. Nothing common or rare escapes me. I carry the power within. I've fallen face down upon the earth to gain the power of heaven, powers greater than the ceaseless shining of stars, powers as great as the sun at creation. Having lived the life demanded of me, I shall step into eternity. Long and quietly I spoke with my soul of death, of love, of things that mattered. I am clothed in light, loved and touched by light, bound by light to enter light. On my heart I bear the scars to prove I lived and I live still. And I live forever. I've been shamed and beaten and have cried out for revenge as I gazed on the empty face of sky. I learned the story of my existence as I lived it, as it was spoken from the mouths of gods. I've passed through the terrors of night. Thirsty and tired I fell by the roadside. I've lifted my face to eternity and been blessed by the kiss of morning.

Now, like a hawk I rise into air, into the heart of the universe. I rest on clouds, hearing joyful things—the song of sparrows, the buzzing of bees, the laughters and pleas of courtesans, the wind murmuring in carob trees. I am whirring as a hawk. With the eyes of the hawk I see, think his thoughts and know the joy of his heart. My flesh is vibrant as air, my words sharp and long as a shout.

Today all the old men in heaven are happy. They are made strong as bulls in green pastures, ready to run, to snort and bellow, ready to make many children. Today is the last day of the world. The sun will not set, the light never wane. We've reached the knot of eternity. A million million years are with us. The breath of life enters. Rivers flow unending. Great is the power of the human heart to love, to change, to make new. The word of light has been spoken and has lived by our hands, in our bodies and in the things we made. Truth shall not pass away. As I turn to dust, I turn to light. I have come home to my father, my brothers, my children, my friends. I have come home to myself. Though my house falls to dust and my fields turn to sand, the light of Egypt lives a million years in me. I shall enter the eye of fire forever. I shall gaze into fire and find the comfort of wife, children, home and cattle. In the dream of an old man, in the eye of eternity, I shall live forever.