Four suns rising
in the dead of night

Each a heart of
the god
of death

beating

(breathing)

beating

(breathing)

and then, an eye
(the waning, gibbous moon)
closing slowly
losing sight
of that - touched by the hearts
is burning - almost

(cold white fire? no, not fire at all!)

almost completely gone.


Then, the eye closes

No longer, to look upon the world

only, feeling

with four bleeding hearts (bleeding light)

the chill wind of humanity (of my humanity)


as sorrow, deep within.

How could she possibly know about me?

About all of us?



And then, the glorious finale

(Apollo, will your arrow reach?

Dead-eye

but falls short.

13.)

Crucified on a bed of light


a dying star (not a star! not a star at all!)


(Who can comfort my dying brother?)

as it reaches - at last, at long last - the crescendo, (beating faster now),

(Chang\'e! Open her eye
(your eye? no, not your eye at all!)

cannot hear me.(Can hear me! Can hear me much too well! It\'s too loud!))

(tortured breathing? no, not tortured at all - then what?)

it begins in the deep halls

of fire
and fire beyond fire

and white fire (not fire at all!)

resonating with eachother

(My brother? Where is my brother now? Will you miss your own funeral pyre, oh brother?)

the heat is almost unbearable (no, not unbearable... not unbearable at all!)

(Terribly, horribly bearable heat! Why must you be so bearable? It must end!)

and the mountains - rise (and fall. and rise and fall again. beating.) and fall one last time (not the last time - oh no, not the last time at all!)

before in a shuddering moment of silence (this silence! I know this silence!)

(silence? This is not silence! This is the loudest sound of all!)

beginning deep in the earth - (fire beyond fire beyond fire) - groaning to life (glorious life! Why must you be so glorious, you who are about to end?)

and beyond (so far beyond!) and up and above (and through and within and without and everywhere and everything and surrounding and suffusing and supplanting TOO LOUD)
and through. And from without.

The four suns, four glorious hearts (the white fire! The fire! It burns! Not fire at all!) in unison now (heavenly choir? not music! Anything but music! Too loud, this again! Too loud by far! Louder!) as they rise higher (and higher and higher and higher) spinning now into one point on the back side of the moon (Ha! Not the moon! Not the moon at all! I see it now!) ever lower and finally... finally striking with a... (what is that? Not a sound, not emotion. My brother? Are you back from the dead? No, not my brother. Not my brother at all.)

I have a body again. (Did I not burn? Oh, I burned. Burned to cinders! Exquisite pain!)

Slowly, in the dead of night, I open my eyes. Waning, gibbous moon. No sun. No sound. No white fire. (not fire at all!)


(The breathing has ceased. The beating has ceased. No more words flow from the spring. No more.)

Tomorrow, it\'s Friday. That\'s good.

Now... I\'ll just go back to sleep (clean up and go back to sleep? Oh no, not at all. Not at all indeed.). Sleep is good.