Stop! Four men are stalking through the underbrush
slipping like shadows shoulders close to ground
Their silent figures deepen the leafgreen hush:
the Headman the Hunter the Shaman and the Clown
They have killed Time these dark men who crouch
for weeks beneath the sub-Saharan sun
whose women dig for roots and weave a couch
of twigs and grass and cook with riverstones
And heart and mind and instinct work as one:
the Headman blazes through their spotted way
the Hunter kneels zeroed on their prey
the Shaman blesses the victim in its blood
and the Clown will tell the story when they're done:
the rules are clear as those before the Flood
Look! There are four chambers of the heart
on city street as well as tropic plain
and four directions where we all can start
and four dimensions and four kinds of pain:
tiger pain maggot pain elephant and shark
Four is the balanced number the four of spades
lies on the table accusing in the dark
We've marched on: only our blood has stayed
And of course we can't go back back to the bush
or desert back to the simple places where
soul and body fuse in the antique air
They weren't really simpler anyway
and yet . . . something gave us a push
until we shattered like a pot of clay
Listen! Deep in the blue North the one wind blows
To the South a yellow flame flares in their eyes
Like a lantern in the West the red leaf glows
while a green star arcs through Eastern skies
Listen! I'm trying to be simple: four
men are stalking through the underbrush they
are in your blood you are a hunter or
you are the hunted and they're on their way
And we lie helpless as a broken wing
Seeking the secret of wholeness we are lost
in houses we have built at enormous cost
but tonight let's howl at the moon that matriarch
of all divided souls and we can sing
of tiger pain maggot pain elephant and shark