Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Op. 8 Dear Conscience
Dear conscience...in the heavens where the stars are, of this Earth where life is..of clear space, your peace of mind..the substance of stars you are. Only from the time of life are you born, and only through time are you destined to see. Of the stars faraway, you have wished to know..if only to bring a bit of its substance to this earthen soil..if only to carry a bit of its radiance, and give, as it is freely given throughout the starry heaven
To you, the deep ache of my youth said, "Rule me completely, or be gone!" But the anguish of my youth knew..."If ruled completely, selfless I would be." Within eternities of life are you conceived. Without you, life cannot be
Dear conscience...when you are unclear, there is only formless spirit. There is only a faint feeling of life yearning to be..feeling burdened to know all..stumbling, crumbling, and so often rebuilding, that you fall deeper into the dark. Falling with no place upon which to land..darkly appearing and venturing to know all..to be all knowing amid the darkness of you, all pervading
In seeking the highest pinnacle of knowledge, you traveled upon apparent paths, obscure roads, into alien neighborhoods, wandering aimless if need be, to keep your noble quest. Any revelation of yourself then, would have brought certain death..yet, even so, a death sustaining some relief from the pain. Such was the nature of your unfeathered wings. Such was your disposition..set to some 'non plus ultra' yet to be revealed
Of right and wrongs injected into you directly, you have presumed yourself to be, simply for love's sake. Out of the misty world of youth and make'believe, you strove to be for the sake of life. And striving to fulfill all that I need, you labored to separate all from what is I. Yet, in all your effort for I to keep, your limited relevance made me feel, your isolation made me feel uncomfortably unique
Thus, deep darkness followed you, surrounded you, and when you stumbled, you crumbled into it. And you quickly rebuilt yourself, but, dear conscience..your separate parts never returned the same. You could never fit yourself back..exactly the same. Undaunted, you continued..falling deeper into the dark around you, falling with no place to be of, darkly appearing, and arising again in the light, only when some light should happen to shine upon you. Seeking the all'knowing, to be all'pervading, creeping throughout the darkness that so easily seeps into you..I, at least, admire your steadfast valor
Always, so suddenly downcast from your holy quest, and so surprised to find yourself floundering upon gentle swells of a sea of dreams..and so indelibly pitted with memories of your triumphant unlight, you hesitated, and doubted your quest for an all'knowing vista. In that moment, you felt high..yet, cold and light headed. But, before you became too filled with the void, some overlording force from your dim past quickly assaults any limitations of what you should be. And soon, those pithy moments did pass, and once again, as before, the next moment was..as though the one before had never occurred
The dint of your thought carried on, never stopping, never slowing because of that nagging fear...if the river of images should ever be dammed, if it should be slowed the least bit, it may stop. And once stopped, fear predicts that thought may never again arise and flow. Life may never again flow, through you. Thus, bles'sed flowing thought readily sought new words for new light to shine upon you, for new space to travel through while thought also sought connections between words. You at least knew that words have so little value, unconnected and broken
And how unspeakable this condition of wretched selfworth was! Yet, no matter how bottomless was the dark pit where your selfworth laid, you persisted through mires of self myth...for wasn't it true?..that such fragile myth in the light was far easier to live with, than what might be un'bearable in the dark
How precarious is life!..within the universe of your broken prose. So little of life would inspire fire within the grey world of self doubt that so much of life had to be ignored, blocked out..quickly discounted from the gifts of eternal creation. So blinded you were by your sacred light that with every experience of life you so readily exchanged for some abstract symbol, I felt a misgiving...that so much life could so easily be reduced to some abstract dreaming
And so, so much of life would remain suspended within the murky spaces of your mind. And for each pain, one symbol would form. And being predominantly of mind, your passion for symmetry readily conjures up a ghostly opposite. And when a pleasure happens, and says, "I am," it too, soon divides and becomes shadowed by pain. Thus, you reluctantly proceed from day to day with a vast array of ghostly opposites. And evermore possessed by indifference, you could not help but be predisposed with a melancholy heart. Existing and enduring somehow...empty, simply. Distracting yourself as much as necessary. Living timeless, unaware of so much life enpassing..through countless seasons, it seems, you endure only to simply be, as you were a moment before, cursing the floor under your feet
And in your desire, dear conscience, for knowledge so high, you too often forgot its price...sorrow so low. And how can you live?..when truth has too high a price, or when it is too complicated to know. And how dearly you would pay, or how exhaustive your effort to know! How futile your efforts were in brightening those days with borrowed memories. How pathetic you felt until you again acknowledged...that sorrow low is indeed the only price paid for knowledge high
And once, I saw your tears fall onto the street. Weakened by the rain squall beating down upon you, you seem to be lamenting about some darkness cast there. And I said to you..."Well, we all have one. Why are you crying about the sun? It stops in you!..like it does in all that lives, and all that is"
So many times you have wept while standing in the sun. Weeping silently until your water wells become dry. Each time you were so moved, you became more isolated from all. And with each emotion welling up, a moment would become a year. Feeling unborn you could not bear. And so it was, that you could not soar in mind, and someone feels your gloom, and because they are kind, a soothing thought strokes your mind. And the pain goes away. In that year, you remembered..that you cannot hear but your own inner voice, and made only of the good and conceptions of evil be, the mind knew not color, nor time through which to see
And suddenly..from the heavens, a very dark cloud released its heaviness, and the rain poured down upon you. And everyone runs but you. The day is dark and cold, but here you are, naked and bold while the rain burst..yet strangely at peace you are..at onement with the murkiness above, traveling swiftly upon some mysterious journey. Inverting outward, turning inward..moving fast..forever changing. Anxious, shiftless. Impending chaos in the midst of your darkness. This darkness of you, you cannot keep from its silent weep. And under the murky mists, you suddenly arose and filled the sky, if only to be this weeping storm, just passing by
Dear conscience...such a heavy burden you were given. You were told that you are destined to become an earthly soul, the core of identity..that the body is just a vessel to serve you, and all else, subservient to you. A slave to fear, you have considered. Fearless, the unforgiven..you have been driven. But neither fearless nor driven by fear can you be, because in living, there is always something foreign, something new bearing down upon you. And what heavy forbearance of thought leans upon you! You was also told that the soul is immortal and must not change. And your silent weep knows the fate of immortality...if it should actually incarnate into a body
How easily therefore, for the sake of your supple light and delicate body, would one such as I, plunge themselves into the ends of indefinite nothingness, and venture there, and remain until some eye there, perceives itself and spontaneously undergoes change, releasing its hold upon some timeless dream. Into such abysmal ends you must enter, seeking the deep, pursuing the darkness..probing formless notions of light there..following the dim paths of ethereal intuitions, eternities of sadness and joy...if only to gain one spark of light!..one bit of light emitting substance that could sink itself deep into memory without losing its glow
But woebegone are you!..dear conscience, having been given the legacy of immortality, to be a heavenly soul..knowing and unchanging. With such a heavy destiny, the revelation of your darkness is forbidden. You must swiftly turn to keep it hidden. Turning, spinning, twirling and whirling if need be, to keep apparent light only, for all to see
From the sun, you must run and follow rainy days, and the grey days overcasting your sullen mood. And if the sun should break through, your eyes become rigid and fixed upward toward the cloudy heavens to avoid what you would see upon the ground. Upon the ground, at your side, what you would see would only make you cry...make you die a little, cry a little. Crying, because you became so easily lost amid so much to touch, and feel
For love, you strove for immortality, for love's sake..to take and embrace the requirement of some good and evil...for love. And forever dwelling in the shade of all else that lives, you came to be a child of mind within the confines of desire and hate. Nurtured by sweet ideals of a perfect rose, yet cradled by its thorns. And so easily divided you can be..of the sublime beauty, of the self divine'd thought, of the pernicious evils conceived. The events of wounded pride knows not the bottom of its pain, nor the extent that it would avenge itself, being so unselfaware, and waging therefore, a relentless war for itself
Allied with dark vengeance, spirits are in rebellion. The rebel is without a cause, the mind without pause. The affliction becomes an addiction to one's self so deep and dark, that only the barbs of hate arise for any good that should happen to wound. Far beyond what is good or wise, dark hate of an unflinching conscience wages blind vengeance, and soon arriving to itself, and suspecting some evil in disguise, deftly levies a fatal blow..after which, having not perceived itself as it rarely does, hate quickly, darkly dies until the next wound
Where?..in this sea of words can you find yourself. Especially when your darkly umber'd soul should begin to brood. And up from your deep, swift currents of emotion surge and break violently over itself. And night swiftly falls upon your mind, whether sea serene or vicious maelstrom. Within all of this, you are simply, in the dimness of yourself, resigned to the horrids of despair fostered by a self, unselfaware. And when this dark eternity should somehow pass, and a sea of words becomes calm, and the day breaks, and the radiant beams from the heavens penetrate and make heavy, the ethers everywhere...where are you then?..when the dark blue sea, loyal to itself spreads evenly flat. Undisturbed. And solitudes of passion'stricken thought spread to vanishing horizons. Where are you then?..when all seems equal and leveled with no sense of where you have been
You have searched high and low. You have looked deeply into, and upon. You have sought near and far. You have hungered to see. And the hunger in you has kept you from feeling this day, so far away. So remote you are from this now, who can say?..who you are..being such a silent heart, beating at your own whimsical speed. How far, and how much must you search?..before you arise, before you awake for the sake of your own life. And I know very well, that a sea of words you would readily make...if only you could fathom the essence of its author..if only you could hear the plain language of colored dreams, especially made for you
In your despair, you stood defiant and glared at the darkness brooding in the heavens. But all you could feel was the dark getting darker..the chill, ever thinner. And when the stillness of your mind finally sets upon you, you fell darkly, unable to utter a prayer. Yet, the language of your soul, I could hear..."Twilight is dimming. I feel like a child who does not want to stop playing. Loving to play as much in the night, as during the day. Night is almost upon me, and I feel sad, though I must, that I must go within and be silent..and lay myself into conscious sleep"
Dear conscience...once so far away and so long ago it seems, you were crying on the street. But even though the darkness of the heavens brought tears down around you, they were warm. And soon, the gloom from above fell to a strange silence. And the darkness was displaced by a brilliant golden light. And there you stood, dripping from so many noble quests of thought, trembling from eternities of ideals that would be god. There you stood, still as stone...radiant, clear, and new, staring at your shadow
Dear conscience, how could you ever have been before? In seeking the brightness of omniscience, within its radiance you could not have been distinguished from anything else! How could you have possibly been seen?..living so unknown to yourself or anyone else
Dear conscience...for so long, throughout so many eternities you were without eyes and ears. Afraid. Bleeding from the thorn. Yet, impassioned with undaunted Will you were, seeking the intricacies of yourself. That is..until that moment..that special moment when you saw your shadow..and became born