I call upon the wind to steel you within its breeze
I call upon the angels to help you feel at ease

I call upon God to let you be released
I call upon your soul to let you rest in peace

It all started so long ago
that even time cannot recall
where or how it all began
and I was not there
but somehow in part I was
and you as well
though we don’t remember
in the traditional way of remembering
yet we can see in the ways
that leave our eyes blind
that we all were there
in some small
yet infinitely important way
a thread pulled from the nothing
that turned into everything
a spool of love unfurling in waves
of sound and dance
and life and death
and Vincent yellow stars
and pastel ballerina Degas
and time melting into pools of Dali
and sounds trapped
in in the silent world of Beethoven
and the drum beat of Kerouac
and the flowers of Baudelaire
and the drunk truth of Bukowski
and something lost
in the shape of memory
betrayed by what would become ego
was the simplicity of joy
before we had flesh to cover our bones
and bones to move our flesh
and our hearts where stars
that dreamt against the emptiness
in the space between what was
and what could be
and in the pulse of becoming
and into the flow of being
and with the birth of want and need
we gave ego sharp tooth and claw
and drew lines across the night
and dived eternities horizon
into heaven and hell
and pulled the gods and devils
from a hat that we found
upon a corpse that was once
a man made out of snow
from a land where winter
was not cold and bitter
but had a gently warmth
and easy fire that was calm and clean
and things of all sort knew
that the need to be loved
was no more or less important
than the need to love
for time was a waste of all
when absent of the art of love
and now what are we
if we are not allowed to dream endlessly
if we are not allowed to love infinitely
if we fail to live kindly
if we ever forget
the art of love
then the beginning may as well
have been the end

Men lift their heads in wonder, shivering
Travelers halt, in fearful awe they stand
Crowds of nations in cities, quivering
As thunderous rhythm shakes every land
The Mountains are singing, they croon, they chant
Arousing poor surprised man’s mortal fears

Avalanche shrug of titanic shoulders
Dismisses the lethargy of ages
The throaty joy of caroling boulders
Carves new lyrics in history’s pages
The Mountains are singing, Earth is enthralled
Climbers, Skiers, and Poets lend their ears

Brave Matterhorn’s signal awakes them all
Kilimanjaro with full voice bellows
Everest, Chimborazo heed the call
Quandary Peak, bright-eyed, joins his fellows
The Mountains are singing, in grand chorus,
Majestic lyrics of tectonic tears

The cliff face shudders, leaping ecstatic
Landslides mark the beginning of the dance
Earthquakes become great frolics dramatic
Amid the refrains of stony romance
The Mountains are singing, a newborn song
To echo unto the end of all years

A rocky deluge of glorious verse
The Alpine cantata rumbles splendid
A true Canticle of the Universe
Whose beauty radiant shan’t be ended
The Mountains are singing, O, what a song!
Rejoicing each thunderstruck heart which hears!

The Earth has run another race round her star
The Two Thousand and Seventeenth year (give or take)
Since the Creator drew breath in history
And now the manuscript is bound, it is sealed
Soon to be sent to the Printer

The Editor-in-Chief does not delegate this task
He leafs through the pages Himself
Though newly-bound, they are not white and fine
There is no fresh crispness, the binding is broken
They are musty already with age, and not only age

It is as if they had been soaked in a tea of human filth
A quarter of it printed in red, blood is cheaper than ink
A quarter of it stained with jaundice, sweat is cheaper than ink
A quarter of it wrinkled illegible, tears are cheaper than ink
A quarter of it, alas! - dreams are cheaper than ink

The Editor reads on, impassive, unfazed
He has long been familiar with Adam’s work
This sequel follows well upon its parent
Consistent in a thousand fires and slaughters
Consistent in a thousand lies and eruptions

Every chapter is headed with a dedication:
“For Death, the only mother I’ve ever loved”
In the foreword the author declared himself immortal
In the afterword he declared mortality an illusion
But the body was an essay on how much he dreaded his demise

Adam sat, nervous, across from the Editor’s desk
He had worked so ******* this
And yet it seemed to write itself
This was his life’s work
Though he never seemed to call the shots

The year Opinion Popular declared secession from the union
And Reality Objective became a Prisoner of War
And we resold our birthright for whatever was on the menu
The old had questions that nobody questioned
And the young had answers that nobody answered

And the Editor looked at Adam with tears in His eyes
And Adam asked if his draft would be published
And the Editor said that there was no alternative
And Adam asked, “What next, then?”
And the Editor told Him, with a sad smile

He told Adam to start work without delay
To begin immediately the next sequel
Because he only had a year before the deadline
And no extensions whatsoever would be granted
And Adam got up to leave, to write -

“But before you go -

“Look here, look close, you may have to squint
But look what you’ve scribbled here, in the margins
Read the footnotes very carefully
And every word in parentheses
And all these that you’ve bracketed”

There is hope scribbled in the margins
And they loved in the footnotes
They were embracing inbetween parentheses
Some of those sobs were even tears of joy
And in the brackets, O, what he had bracketed!

He had bracketed all those who labored to rebuild
The bridge-builders, the peace-makers
The dream-builders, the light-seekers
The school-builders, the truth-teachers
The home-builders, the wound-healers

He had bracketed numberless beautiful births
He had bracketed charity of mother and father
He had bracketed heroic sacrifice, all selfless
Men and women who loved family and country and God
Far more than they loved themselves

“Let’s make this the focus of the next edition.”