Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Op. 5 Beauteous Time
So easily can a beauteous sensation spawn a brief eternity, in which the universe becomes weightless and non'existent
When winter is in the north, I face the southern horizon, and see the sun rise southerly red from the east and set abruptly in the west. And below the equator, the same sun is seen while facing the northern horizon, rising leisurely high in the northern sky and setting northerly red in the west. From down under the equator, or from here, I look farthest to the east. My time is high noon. Their time, deep night. At one minute past noon, I look far to the west...it is early morning, the morning of those rising from a long night's rest. At two minutes past this midday hour, I look again to the east in the midst of this cold windy day. I look to where everyone is sleeping, resting for the next day approaching. And far westward within this midday, they stir from a deep repose in the beginning of winter's night. And down south from there, other people are also rising, but within a warm bright morning..because there, it is early summer
Gaining time, traveling toward dawn. Losing time, passing twilight, experiencing no time, leaving at noon and arriving at noon of the same day that was left behind thousands of miles away..time sways, streams, stops, and crawls. Time is saved or lost, but more often belonging to a different day, or different part of a day. At the moment of midnight faraway, out at sea, if I should look to the west, I would see the first moments of yesterday. With each passing moment, tomorrow shall grow feeding from yesterday, and steadily yielding to the silent rotation, the quiet meditation of this earthen body is the heart of the time we know. And when the last moment of a solitary yesterday passes, there is a moment when all of Earth is of the same..when the border of tomorrow and the boundary of yesterday had disappeared, and all time on Earth is of a single day
Yet, such a brief passing this onement is, yielding as quietly as the Earth turns, in deep space, turning for a new day to emerge with yesterday close behind. Alone, this border is swiftly moving between the cold extremes of Earth, and the boundary of midnight moving, knows its beginning and end, as tomorrow moves steadily away from the border of yesterday
Time bleeds, time weeps..time keeps and moves on. Time takes, time forsakes..time initiates and terminates. Time gives, time forgives, and lives and re'lives. Time is elixer, fixer, mixer. Time is the medium in which all negotiates..the impossible becomes possible, and the intractable, in time, sees a larger world than itself. And in all that time does, time moves slow or fast, of itself, future or past, aware or un'aware
Falling I am into paradise image of wonder divine, I find endless play among metaphysical stars in this timeless space, as one worldview paradigm imperceptibly shifts to another! Eternal night and day, ever fading, ever regaining, am I newborn, and reborn again and again with each new sensation...touch, sight and sound, fragrance or flavor..all deep with its own mystery or mystery of color, as the deep dark of sleep is but a brief passing eternity within which the world, the universe, the cosmos exists without us. And with each passing day, a bit of youth shall also pass..as surely and unnoticed as the Earth turns, time burns, and the moment last, never returns
While the deep body is suspended from indulged sensibilities, tantalized taste buds, fragrant rose buds..libido languishing in fantasy..seductive form and curve drowning the senses on a mid'summer's lazy day...where? but in this field of dried hay standing still do purgatories of conscience lay. Laying in silence, deep stillness. Hearing nothing else except breathing, and beating heart. Where else? but in the stillness of this suspended light can such paradise of thought be paid. Clearly, one does pay well for anything of beauty. Where else? amid sultry stillness of a mid summer's midday can we feel the subtle, gentle essence of our beginning
Throughout eons unending, it seems..from eternities refrained are we so formed. From countless periods of time have subtleties of sensation emerged to be. And how dearly now, do we pay to foster anything of worth! How painfully must we give..a bit of soul for a portion of beauty, for inevitably, as some light casts onto a bit of soul, that bit turns. From un'conscious life to conscious death, a bit of enlightened soul lives, so beauty may live
As this world is perceived, this cosmos was so long ago made. As the universe was so made, were we conceived and so formed. And so formed we are, with only trace elements of all the matter there is. Of water our body mostly is. Of space we are..more than water. A miniscule portion of water within a small cell of space we perhaps are..but within any measure of sea, any portion of lake, or aloft within a great billowy mist, is there some water perceiving another?..or some faculty of a frozen mountain peak knowing the beauty from there?..or anywhere? feeling pleasure thereby, of the systems of creation and their intricate relation
Beyond the mountains and sky, beyond the sun and the great starry metropoli to which we belong..far, far away from all this, is so much of creation continually being destroyed as often as it is made. Being so very, very small in this vast system of things, amid imponderable mass and space am I. And so predisposed..I wonder..even so, amid the preponderance of all this, where is life and beauty? if it cannot say, "I am, I live"
In this world of many sparkling lights, vast regions of stars and space are everywhere. As a speck in this vastness, I am. As a being, my senses are hopelessly inept in bringing to me now, the nature of the cosmos everywhere. Instead, within this firmament of illusion, there is only the sparkling and the twinkling of a very old memory. Even the steady blaze of the radiant sun is but a memory of its slow decay, always continuing, only moments away, beginning darkly..ending as this day..always beyond us for this life, this I'am within
Of all there is, 'all and everything' do we give. To be. To feel. To simply say, in the darkness of my deep, "I am." Is this the sole purpose? of all this vastness of space and imponderable substance. This simple awareness, this self'seeing eye. And if this should be the only eye, would it not? own the universe. Is this? what the universe is all about
Within a minute portion of the cosmos, I am through a minute portion of my body perceiving beauty against imposed gradients of order and disorder. Amid great regions of timeless space and unyielding giants of radiant matter, one must travel far to find even one origin of beauty from a minute amount of space and matter that a being is. And how easily! this minute realm of space and matter can, with one simple vision, achieve parity with all there is. Aye indeed!..only, through a self'seeing eye do the I's of existential calamities lie, vie, and die in eternity
Searching throughout the universe for those places within which enough peace prevails for the elements of the universe to combine and recombine..to divide and redivide..to branch and continue to branch into such convoluted complexities within and without, that I'am inevitably awakens within a suitable un'interrupted environment. If I'am is awakened matter, is all else?..simply asleep
Living pleasure and pain, knowing deep sorrow for the gain of beauty's treasure, I am of pleasure that pain pays for..of splendor so high, paid by vulgar so low
Within sweet haven, we be for a time, for a brief moment. For a blink of evolution's eye, we are of an insignificant amount of time. Knowing only a minute region of the cosmos immediately around us, we reside upon an earthen planet with colors darkly mixing, moving through space..swiftly, silently, moving inconspicuously does beauty live in deep retreat from the dint of so much imposing convoluted light
Within the depths of endless eddies and oceans of void we are. Deep in space, we are in the midst of a vast ocean of emptiness. Of spiraling systems of starry clusters we are within a single cluster upon a planet held fast by a single common star among countless stars. We are upon a small planet body seasoned by its waters through countless eons. Within a body we call our own, we are. Within this tiny portion of matter we are amid the vastness of space and matter everywhere around us. With minute space and time, I perceive only a small ray of all the kinds of light there are. I can only touch a minute portion of all matter that can be felt. I hear, taste, and smell only within narrow bounds of all there is. Like the body I am within, and the tiny Earth I am upon, my world is but a minute fragment of all there is. Yet, again, how easily can one single value having arisen from just a single sensation of sweet fragrance or a vision of radiant elegance, equal or outweigh all the preponderance of matter and space there is. So easily can the rest of the universe be made weightless and non'existent in a moment, when even the least of beauty is perceived
The perception of an entire cosmos of stars, a whole solar universe, or this world of Earth can be obliterated during beauteous time. For beauty's name sake alone, might we become forgetful in eternity. For the chance that a bit of beauty may be gained, are large portions of soul given..or in the end, after a lifetime has nearly passed per chance misfortune with so few precious feelings..even the whole of one's soul may be offered for a some beauteous sensation where there was none before
Traveling swiftly and silently upon a journey through deep stillness, within this silent emptiness, I am upon a small vessel turning..basking before a radiant starry body. Time sees, and time sleeps. The day turns, the night creeps. Like in some deep slumber, the Earth slowly turns, and time inevitably returns the warm radiance of the sun to everyone. Time breathes as the Earth turns, and time chants as the seasons unfold..moving around the sun..spiraling through space, the Earth in this silent deep is where beauty lives
And upon the Earth, over land and sea..over the cold extremes far to the north and south are the spirits of the wind, unseen yet everywhere. Rising high, high away from the Earth below, clean and clear, the spirits readily enter all that lives. From the heights of Earth, the spirits enter freely, any who would notice its rhythm..breathing in some sleeping rhyme, the Earth turning..like the seasons, its rhythm journeys with the Sun..the cadence of time following the moon...rising, ebbing, and falling, I breathe freely in this sweet silent space..a charm within which beauty radiates like the great starry illusion in the sky...large, brilliant, and warm
Focusing clearly and narrowly upon any aspect of the things of Earth or its living inhabitants, so far from hand and eye making and guiding this creation around me, am I a self'seeing void seeking pleasure. Feeling the emptiness of space, I know the directions that space has to offer. And dark caverns of emotion are soothed and seasoned by beauty enpassing. All of what I am is of the same stillness that everyone self'aware occupies, a stillness patient..for a simple vision of beauty
For beauty divine, how precious are the subtle agonies of alternating harmony and discord? How valuable are the terrors of tough love posing itself as love?...the impending doom of hate, fear'driven delusions posing itself as truth, or fearless realities offering themselves as escape. How valuable? is any tyranny of mind dominating. Nevertheless, they are the progenitors of beauty..the mud from which the lotus springs. They are grams that spawn inconspicuous grams that can outweigh an entire universe. For beauty's namesake! is pain and discord readily endured
Within the extremes of Earth will life endure eternities of twilight and dawn. Of heavy summer days firing clay and barren soil, where the waters are barely measured or felt..where the earthen floor, thick with evergreen of all kinds is gorged with fresh lucid waters, flowing, seeking its own level..where a small village sits highest in the sky, and the million stars at night readily penetrate the cool stillness of a nocturne mind there. Where the Earth cracks deep and wide, opening its past to any that may read its mind..where the wind can blow a shaft of straw through a tree..or where the waters freeze readily around the eyes. Such eyes ensearching, would find amid these extremes, life struggling, endeavoring to be
In all sincerity, we live..even if only for a brief moment..and a brief moment more, because in that moment a bit of beauty may arise, and as easily as wise Earth becomes covered with autumn leaves, even immortal infernos of pain become forgotten in beauteous time. It is, by some proportion of magic, that beauty in all its splendor make eternities of wonder, and life wherever, forever