Siane. Part 3 of 3 (from basa nuvo poems by pd lyons)

PART III

Real magic has the quality of knowing. By paying attention you get to know things and when they will happen. With this knowledge you can create the illusion that you cause the inevitable to happen. Real power is when you have people convinced that they can't get along without you. But there are other things, things beyond people. Once I convinced the wind that it couldn't get along with out me.

I’d go out to the top field where the horses ran free. Where they worried themselves with petty grievances, grazed as they wished regardless of day or night and sometimes lay like dead things strewn - lulled by whatever dreams it is that horses dream. On a grey out crop of lichenined stone I stood, turned my face to the sky and this is what I said:

"If I could be anything in the world

I would be the wind.

To kiss the sea.

Embrace the sky

Caress the earth.

Come wind I call you

Bring the rain, bring the storm,

The lightning and the thunders roar.

Come wind I love you!"

I tried this several times and sometimes the wind would come up strong while others calm and quiet. In other words I made no impact what so ever. But I did not give up. By now the horses took notice of my antics and drew around as if seeking inspiration from my sermon on the mount. Perhaps they found some but the wind did not. Once I got so angry this is what I said:

"If I could be anything in the world

It would never be the wind,

Insignificant bastard of the heavens

Ignorant victim of a manipulative earth,

Carrier of piss spit bird droppings

Owner of dust and ashes...."

At this did the wind hesitate even for a moment before it went back to ignoring me? Eventually the horses too lost interest in my daily ritual. After all I brought no carrot or apple, I didn’t respond to their sparing for attention and I was as bored as they with their rearing, bucking, bluffs.

Finally I decided to give up. I decided that if I couldn’t be master then I would surrender. So I said when the wind was quiet,

"As the wind is quiet and still, so am I."

And too if the wind moved from the East I would say,

"As the wind I too move from the east.”

So it was with every direction and with every temperament. As gentle breeze or herald of the storm and too through the seasons such as that of summers comfort or raging winter’s howl. For a whole year this was my daily practise. There were times when I thought I 'd be carried away, dragged along the ground or else motionless so long I 'd drop from fatigue but this did not happen. I began to know the wind, a scent on the air, look of the sky, temperature from yesterday compared with today, slight almost invisible trembling of leaves - all were signs. So closely did I follow that I became as a shadow to the wind.

In time my movements became just slightly ahead until it was I who cast a shadow called the wind. Until once more it was late autumn

When finally I could say "Follow my hands as I have led you this way forever." And the wind, having no memory of forever, believed that this was so and therefore had always been so. How could it doubt I was who I claimed to be? After all had we not moved together and had it not now been reminded that this had always been?

So once again I spoke, my purpose being to keep my image in its fragile memory,

"I have known you with whisper, shout and breath,

Shared with you submission and mastery,

Shared with you the gift of motion and stillness

Now know and remember me!"

And the wind enveloped me, inhaled and from the breath of my voice to the scent carried on the tiny hairs between my legs, I was known! Quiet then rocked with shivers, head cradled between my knees my own steamy urine puddles around my toes before trickling down to where a bald faced chestnut mare stood watching like a ghost

Siane. Part 1

Siane

Part One

He truly loved the land more than anyone ever did, as if this loving could make the land forget how he had come, as one adopted through the wedding chamber. With scepticism and disdain the land responded, for this sentimental tender love - this was not enough!

And the horses? Well they adored him.Their noses quivered at his presence,they raced, stood up on their hind legs, sang for him even took bites out of each other to draw his attention. But they would not let him ride. For they were brothers and sisters with him,

beloved companion, never to be considered master. And he? He admired the land for its strength, how it showed to him its true face and for that he said "What great spirit, a terrible beauty. How fortunate I am to be chosen to see the true face of the land."

Towards the horses he was also grateful and for that he said "What noble blood, what rare beauty. I am so fortunate to be allowed to know their secrets." While the land and the horses both looked to one another and said “Well what can you do with a man like that?"

    Now she, who had taken the man to her wedding bed, she held the land tight with her own hands and so marked it with her own blood. That was how the land was won. Her own flesh protecting and defending and willing to do so over and over - That was how the land was kept. It was she who led the horses to shelter when the sky burst at midnight, kept them from prairie fires, dipped her hands into their mothers at the time of their birth and with a voice of smooth leather and singing bees subdued even the most bold among them. To the land she was forgiving. Admiring its resilience she would say "So beautiful yet so obstinate - you are the breaker of my heart but I will never leave you." To the horses she was wise and often amused would say “You make me laugh when you try your tricks on me but I won't let you forget our bargain." While the land and the horses long ago had looked to one another and said "Well what can you do with a woman like that?"

The man of course could not understand all the ways of his wife. In his opinion her discipline kept her from appreciating the beauty that surrounded her. But he would also say, as was his nature "I admire her strength and abilities. Truly this is a magnificent woman. If she were not my wife and therefore part of me I should envy her these things."

The woman at first was quite perplexed regarding her husband. She suspected perhaps some flaw in a man who would refuse to master such things in a way similar to her own. On this she pondered for some time before concluding that because of his way, surely he had never known loneliness. So then she did say "My husband has this nature which I cannot my self afford to indulge in. Yet it is also true that being joined to me he can do this for us and we will both benefit from the balance."

So their wisdom of what marriage truly is prevailed and luckily for me because that is what I was born into. My parents of course taught me their ways.With the horses my mother taught me how to ride, my father, how to share their secrets. She, how to hold the land,he, that I could love it more than anyone who ever saw it. And I, being a true issue of their wedding bed, understood both and formed a way of blending each, a way of my own.