The Inward World


Contents:

The Inward World
In the Wizard's Ship
This Beautiful Mist


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The Inward World

Roger Echo-Hawk
January 2001


We emerge from
forgetful fabric
you & I

where our
humanity drifts
ever forward through
handed-down versions

of a throng of evaporating details

the very shape of the ebbing earth
fluttering from one dominion to the next

where the most enduring intricacies
of our humanity
labor to reveal themselves

the humanity of selves
forever at their work

inventing an indistinct realm
of remembered images, a crowd of identities
entangled in the makings of sorrow & joy

as if a perpetual manufacturing of details occurs

and the infinite art of continuity
draws us inevitably onward

& we become surrounded together
by the vast mystery of our humanity

caught up among unexpected
moments of amazement

our inexplicable journeys

the everyday
joining of moments & selves

And the telling
of our pleasures and our sorrows
our gentle selves and our cruel selves
the myriad gentle cruelties

gifts of anguish and goodness
& the frightful news
we bring into the world
all the wonderful news we bring

our precisely
indiscriminant humanity

among our other
companions in this world

we accompany one another
from shadow to shadow of the world

& our various paths have been woven together
in company across the pathless world

and even our shadows have been woven
into the surfaces of our shared world

our indivisible love
our autonomous images

the women moving to & fro in the light
wandering among the shadows of the men

& the men wandering here & there under the light
moving among the shadows of the women

they remember their journeys
all those selves/souls

our luminous
inseparable circles

alighting everywhere/anyone

& the memory of wayfaring
from circle to circle

when we say we belong
& everyone belongs

wherever
anyway

it is the overwhelming dream
of our endlessly extinguished selves

the accumulation of our perpetual humanity
a crystalline history, almost transparent

imprints of another vanished self

where the embedded seeming
of immutable events
is both enduring
& evanescent

And it is necessary for us
to have memories of everything anyway

so we must entangle ourselves
with entangled forms of knowing
with knowable certainties & uncertainties

we must really just take aim
with every possible certainty

And our targets frequently seem very real
forever looming & receding as they do

our endlessly several selves, our infinitely
disappearing productions of life

ephemeral inventions
upon the everlasting earth

was it ever real

my particular supposition
I must guess

just take aim
toward everything anyway

toward humanity
another
infinite art

however aimless

& inward


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In the Wizard's Ship

Roger Echo-Hawk

February 2010
Dream, April 1, 2005


when we discover what we mean
the knowable surfaces, the deeper
mysteries that shape us, our next
version of humanity under layers
upon layers, unfamiliar imprints
giving way to golden crystal light
the nature of this glowing forever
entangled in our weird quest for
selfhood, mechanisms, energies
the constant creation of identity
shining in such a beautiful mist
under sunrise so swift upon us
to dream under daybreak & in
this dream we dwelt in our ship
journeying far with our friends
luminous children of the moon
we set them down in one scene
alighting upon a radiant land &
in our ship the wizard wandered
we grew lettuce & our machines
fed us; a herd of horses galloped
across velvet grasslands, very fast
I drove my car on the gravel road
down the sunny center of the ship
with visitors from a planet below
our hovering ship, before a booth
I chose a man & I chose a woman
to ask my questions & to wonder
if we love if we marvel if we feel
someday everyone we’ll be okay
so the wizard & I stood together
to teach those travelers we tried
to teach our ways like this & we
helped our friend in his planting
the wayfarer began to scatter his
tiny tobacco seeds in shallow soil
at the other end of the ship, at the
foot of a looming hull we worked
and for several years I tried to say
something about those friendships
what everything meant in my life
what to value, what to summon up
out of my hazy golden crystal light
out of a changeless unending mist
still resonating from sunrise upon
us all so long ago so suddenly &
& I had to write down this dream
& I wrote it down in my mind &
in my heart yes I wrote it down


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This Beautiful Mist

Roger Echo-Hawk

January 2010
Dream, November 5, 2008


Dig down into selfhood, serene layers beyond sunset
shy memories soaking into lonely soils, forgetfulness
yes forgetfulness sailing across secret twilight depths
of hidden discoveries, certain avowals, comfort levels
another competition in darkness without compassion
for dreams made jagged in gleaming sands of identity
yes this is all about the dreaming and not the exterior
where selfhood rushes on from dawn to dusk in a time
of empathic connecting, mind to mind, don’t you ever
feel it? Out beyond race; look far, breathe deep; let us
together slowly sleep under moonrise so soon upon us
slip down winding chrome paths into a fine phantasma
my weirdly fateful curve into freedom, the knowing of
unforeseen selves, unfamiliar doings, to dream like this:
I dreamed I was a sailor in the navy. A man in distress
floated in heavy seas near my ship; other sailors swam
courageously in the cold water to keep him company
before his rescue. A dead shark had been cut in half.
During the Vietnam War this happened until finally
I swam to the ship. I stood alone. Upon a glass deck
and there I met a sailor who wafted up a shining pole
to tell me a strange tale – I watched the scenes unfold.
In a Saigon bar a drunk once played with a huge pistol.
It shot giant but harmless bullets. An alien wearing a
smooth silver suit sat watching, disapproving. And so
when the man approached the alien, waving about his
hilarious pistol, the alien bent his head. With unseen
antennae he calmly enwrapped the man, shocking him.
I guess the dumbass had it coming. But I don’t know....
Even if he deserved the jolt, should I have warned him?
Turning to a neighbor the alien asked, Are you ready?
Yes the man felt ready. They left together. I thought
the man might have fallen into a trance. Concerned
and sympathetic for his... did he now have a “plight”?
I followed them. We walked in a meadow. The alien
floated up into a ship – & sure, I could see it hovering
but it was an invisible vessel. The man floated next. I
entered too, just curious. No one cared. Onboard, in
chairs, people appeared to be sitting, or parts of people
I couldn’t tell. Were these humans here of their own
free will? Or had everyone been mentally compelled?
This question seemed important, impossible to ascertain
and yet... and yet somehow not quite what I should ask.
I looked around. Passing through a doorway I could see
outside the ship. A shaded world. Swift scenes. Purple
hazy forests below; black tree branches bending quietly
asleep in a blue-gray nocturnal moment before sunrise.
Houses that collapsed if the ship touched them; I knew
the tale that everyone would tell – how it would seem
like a natural disaster, like an earthquake. Also... also
something about death. I had the feeling that perhaps
people got killed but the aliens didn’t think it pertinent
to care. The aliens didn’t see suffering & mortality and
the making of trauma as morally wrong; it felt pointless
to care since dying didn’t mean what I thought it meant
but sensing this truth I still couldn’t grasp what it meant
so I feared the aliens, their indifferent opaque purposes.
I drifted to an information counter. Here I saw records
of the aliens, and in their long labors on Earth they had
been among us since 1325 CE doing whatever they did
with humankind. In some cases, just a few, individuals
they worked with had failed in some major way. Hitler
had been one such dropout, a vastly disappointing failure
glimpsing the incident I just didn’t want to get distracted
distracted from entering the glow at the end of my story
and at the beginning of this part of the story I sat in my
seat along a wall. Others sat at a table. An “acting” class.
I made a heartfelt speech & it felt good to say what I said
vital. Exactly spoken. A man nodded. What you say is
wise,
he said, & he discussed an alternative of some kind.
In our warm humane way of debating I didn’t feel wrong
nor did he. We had different ideas, differing perspectives
and yet everyone felt at ease, very gentle, wise. Everyone
yes everyone in this class had mastered such calm depths
becoming human, fully human, & such insights when we
at last became fully human in the story – this was acting
with gratitude for the serenity of sublime truths and yes
for our very humanity we must share this beautiful mist
perfectly at rest in our hearts; our minds perfectly at rest
let us slowly fall asleep under moonrise so soon upon us
let us dig deep into selfhood to find a forgotten mystery
leave layers of selves at the edge of what we can fathom
an infinite deepening of lost memories, of forgetfulness
forgetfulness forever sailing in a forever-beautiful mist
slipping down steep chrome paths to dream of freedom
our suffering our mortality our compassion our mastery
of layer after layer, of sunrise & sunset, of dawn & dusk
perfectly at rest in our minds; our hearts perfectly at rest

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