Evoking epic poems of a long-gone age, Three Dreams of the World's Creation and Soledad: Letters to My Daughter presents a three-part novella in free verse that provides an interpretation of the beginning of mankind. Author juanantoņio first addresses th
Three Dreams of the World's Creation and Soledad: Letters to My Daughter
By juanantoņioabbott press
Copyright Š 2012 juanantoņio
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4582-0386-1Contents
Three Dreams of the World's Creation.....................1Part I...................................................2Part II..................................................5Part III.................................................8Part IV..................................................13Part V...................................................17Part I...................................................19Part II..................................................22Part III.................................................26Part IV..................................................29Part V...................................................34Part VI..................................................36Part VII:................................................50The Third Dream:.........................................53Epilogue.................................................85Soledad: Letters To My Daughter..........................91Prologue.................................................92
Chapter One
The First Dream: a humble scribe's tale of an ancient god
Part I
Beneath the earth, he opened first his eyes
Mountain ranges fell to dust and void
And countless times merged as rock, world and man
Then past all time, word and deed
To void again unchanged
Frozen time in glacial form flowed sinking
Into cradling holes before creation
And toward its end dragging mountain boulders
Across the face of imagined history
Deeply scarring possibility
And yet he climbed toward the light
Made of flesh and form
Which would give birth to humankind
Granite leeching into bone
Moving as rock and gas and water to eternal beat
Dispersed, as fingers grasping emptiness
Coalescing each in its own place as named
Their pace not measured by human span or thought
But by galaxies unhurried, birthing and dying
He climbed, each step measuring a life
A life sloughed off
To start again, a step then death,
Each death adding to the next, an endless once
He died every man and woman
Which would ever live and die
These numbered all things that life contains
Each mite, crawling, flying, swimming thing,
Each blade of grass and grain of sand
Until each step numbered countless lives
With each sloughed life, there died all things
And every word and act
Unending climb in dark
Light unknown but yearned
Gave direction to his climb
Past countless pits and halls
Through narrow inclined paths
Glimmering specks hushed the water rivulets
That rushed eternal to where he had been
Small points of light gave shape to a curving path
With clouds of glowing light-made haze
With silver flecks, brightly shining
The word light was born
Now spoken, now called by name
Though yet again mountain ranges fell to dust
And rose again before
He entered the earth's domed blue sky
And walked among the living and dying things
All grass and fruit
He left no trace of his passing there
For with each step, the grass
Recomposed itself
He felt a void and could find no path
Nor one create
Passing into the time of the sun and moon
Of living things, of pain and loss
Of death, regret and sin
Of man's thought, deed, and words
Which all betray
And so he bitterly exclaimed:
Though now just born to light
I feel the sins
Of all unborn and yet to be
I need to be of rock and darkness hewn to bear
A weight as this, all things foreseen
Not from godly sight but felt pain and loss
What hand has torn me from
The earth and water down below?
Eternal life though in black night is better than
This quicksilver time of soledad
Cursed be this tyrant god
Whose ends through my travails
And pain will be revealed
And yet the pain is small and easily borne, all loss
And pain, regret, defiance but a grain of sand
To this yearning void compared
Part II
In the darkest water's depth
The incandescent rocks made her body shine
As a red dwarf pulsing star
With mouth agape against the sinuous
Current that gives nourishment to all
The gliding creatures of the dense nutrient sea
With graceful fins to maintain her place
Facing the red glowing warmth
No thought, stillness nor desire
Swallowing the swirling sea
The great weight strove to crush her
The current's filling flow held her
Balanced between the crush and flow
All creation birthing, dying
Born again through her
Until she craved the light
Not knowing its kind or name
Woman your name is spoken
All life, all seed of life has flowed through you
So that you may fertilize the land
With all living things that are to come
These words, each one a bell resounding
Awakened some part of her
That understood and could see beyond
Could plan and master things as might a god
The ancient god which spoke these words
Loved woman more than man
For she was more fully made in his image
And in a fit of love for self
Gave her a fuller measure of love
Beyond all reason a strength to love
And that encompassed both life and death
But in a jealous stronger strike,
For her soul shone brighter still
Than his own which could not love
But that which mirrored him
He gave her pain in love
Through man's betrayal and disloyalty
And child's ingratitude
But to this god's dismay this steeled her soul
And she rose higher still in creation's hierarchy
Of which he too was part, and given to
Crescendos of passion saw that he had gone too far
Seeing his mirrored soul in her
More beautiful than he could aspire,
Imprisoned in envy's grasp,
He measured loss to love
So pain would ever equal love
Even as she gave birth to the world
All this in her ascent to water's surface calm
She escaped death that day because
She would pay that debt in pain
In the warmth of the sun after the long ascent,
A yearning void split in two
The tumultuous pair of love and pain
Innocent still of joining's agony
No longer finned leviathan but of female form
Of voluptuous grace she rode
In god's cupped hand upon the waves
And landed by verdant plains alone
Where all was green and in its place,
But nothing moved except the wind,
And there was no sound,
But the rasping blades of grass
And bristling leaves
One upon the other in undulating waves
She looked upon this plain
Fine of form (and thrice again and more
Of voluptuous grace, for this woman
More than beautiful, shone from within,
Like the sun to the moon, and gave freely
As a summer shower to parched sands
That answering bloomed in deepest colors
Of eternal love, your ignorant, humble
But loquacious scribe must speak
When woman's grace is faintly praised)
With smooth brown skin bathed by the sun
And almond eyes which called forth
The fruits of this world
Part III
The ancient god had one more play
To consummate his plan, and whispered well
Into the ear of man, the dangers of
The keepers of the winds and the giants that guarded them
For charged and powered by the ancient one
And challenged not by beast or lesser god
They drank, ate and played
Then slept as desire swayed,
At day or night, and then again,
And they walked as gods would walk
The ancient god would remove them all
To reach his goal and rule the world alone
He said, O piteous naked man in paradise,
Not you, nor yours will ever rest in peace,
But work all your days to please
The keepers of the winds and their giant slaves
They will crush your first and second born
Like sparrows' eggs, and suck their juices dry
This awoke in man a fiery rage
That burns unto this day, and man exclaimed:
My arm alone, my fist will rend unsafe
This world against the giants
And the keepers of the winds
I will secure the safety of all my progeny
Monsters too multiply and hidden evil seed
Will rise in ages distant now
But loved offspring and strong will vanquish
The evil of their days
And having said, vainglorious man sought out
The keepers of the winds and giants too, that guarded them
And slew them as they slept
He crushed their heads and sucked them dry
And was satisfied
Never had creation's plan or thought, intent
Released a creature such as man
To their surprise and regret
The keepers of the winds that blew in orderly
Progressions from North and South
Then East and West, balancing each without destruction,
Had become too proud, and the giants
Who walked where they pleased, now were no more
(And here your ever humble and modest scribe
In apologetic style must interject
Your patient forbearance requesting
That man though intentioned well to love
Protect, secure the well being of future humankind
Thus freed the winds to lash the Earth
With furious storms and tides, and so unbalance harmony
That lion first thought to eat the lamb
And man to thrill at killing man
And where giants walked, pestilence freed
To walk prouder still, and where it pleased,
The ancient one joyful that ruling
Would be eased and men would slay in name of love
And burn their goods to him
So love betrayed once more, man would
Remain an easy prey and slave
And is unto this day)
One task more befell the female of the pair
There crept unto this land from secret plagues
Of times before, female creatures of fair design
And grace who with improvident excess
Would eat their young and careless consorts too
The furies as they were known, and of later fame,
Had played at love with the ancient god
For he enjoyed sex and blood, and would kill
In ecstasy full, a score of them
It was he who taught them well the blood sport thrill
But he had wearied and wary too, that provoked by
Greed and lesser gods they planned to dance
Upon his grave buried in foul excrement
Now woman, he intoned with soft whisperings,
These will prey upon you, your progeny come of man
As me they claim as god supreme and will not share,
And hunt you down and take your man
To fill their appetites
How simple to provoke and take his ease
As woman, female privy to their wiles
Could snap a trap of death
She did not disappoint, but wandering lost
Throughout the plain with plaited vines
Captured many of succulent game
That she had spewed in practice run of fertility
And by happenstance, or so she said, entered
Upon their camp, straining under cacophony
Of leaping, jumping, braying game
Wild boar, hare, deer and elk and fowl
The furies, used to fruits and grain, and occasional
Lovers' or off-springs' blood, saw an abundant feast
And woman's promise of roasted meat, another first,
That would fill the nose and heart of the ancient god
With jealousy
And cook she did, with many herbs, after slaughter
And feast of blood, and pegged the vines
On posts of wood to round the fire and bid
They sit upon the vines to watch her cook
The fire rose, fed by scented wood and
Boar skin drippings, and singed the low-flying clouds
Their senses filled with mouth watering ecstasy
They soon fell one on another to devour
And all approached the raging fire
And blinding smoke in maddened hunger
Soaked by blood
Woman leapt and looping vine and posts
Around the frothing maddened mob, four score,
Trussed them all and tossed them to the fire
(And only three escaped, or so I'm told,
To bring despair to other lands, your faithful scribe)
She cooked them well and ate them all
She always brought to end what started well
And she exclaimed:
What use fertility without blood-lust strength
To protect, defend my own
I will eat bone sinew, muscle and blood,
And from this day will care with love,
Guile and cleverness too
But rise in vengeful, blood enraged
To defend the lives of those I love
The ancient god blinded with tears
From the fat-filled smoke and fallen voracious
Upon the sizzling roasted boar,
To his regret, did not hear her vow,
Not magic ring, or sword, but brute force love
Would give her strength forevermore
The ancient god saw his creation's grace
And lust, but also hate was born
Toward this pair of creatures he had called
To fill the earth with living things of his invention
He could not live, but only stand
Aside and watch their lives
They should not be who live this life but he
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Three Dreams of the World's Creation and Soledad: Letters to My Daughterby juanantoņio Copyright Š 2012 by juanantoņio. Excerpted by permission of abbott press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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