Fire of Hearts
THE bad weather had subsided. \the sound of the spring equinox heralded the falling of a silence on the world. In the village, a few village men, young and old, sat around the long dining table, eating by candlelight. The village elders had gathered to select a new sage-the young had no wisdom, yet the wise men desired the young-and so they seated the young with the old, and none left alive would ever know. Before the elders sat the long table, with an old flint spear on it, it was cold to the touch as it glowed in the light from the candles. \(but it was worth it, it was the knowledge that I will not return. \) one of the young men said: \((I chose this spear, because, when it strikes, the spear will be split in two. Half of the spear will go out to become a bird, so the wisp of a spear can fly around, being a bird, and think about what we had, and whether to go on. Half of the spear, the half that is left, will come back to me, and I will become wise, and then I will guard it and understand the power of flight, and perhaps build a new village with a thick stone wall and and a trapdoor into the next world.\)) \((a warthog man-creature, \) another young man said, drawing into words his inability to remember his family and friends. ((I thought of my parents, my relatives, my village, my friends, but my home and my parents are gone now, so I do not miss them in the way that I could, if I could recall them again. They may as well not be a part of me now, any more than my eyes are part of my body now that I see without them.)) \((but what of the village, of my life? the wisp of a spear? what shall I do with it? \) the young man asked. \((I think I will remain with my people, but I do not know why I feel the urge to guard it. All I know is that it is a burden I should not bear, so I will not leave it behind. I suppose that in the end, knowing is not knowing, and the answer to the question is as elusive as before. And that is my answer to the way ahead, at least for now.\)) ((the other young man, here, said: I think I will go home to the city, and live among the people I grew up among. I will remember the things of my youth, but not the sorrows of my home. I will continue to be a father, a brother, a friend, but I will not become a part of that grief, it will not be mine.)) \((and then they said: That will be our voice, young man-creature, that will take flight like a winged dove, flying far away from us, flying away to a future beyond us, far away from our sorrows, and far away from our questions,\)) ((the old said: With what voice? what is there to compare with the way that can song that speaks words we could not have? I speak the deepest wisdom of the elders, and yet it is another mouth, another voice, and yet it has it own power, with words so beautiful and profound. Look at the blood of your children, and remember, look into your wife’s eyes and see, hear, hear, hear our song, which will return to us someday. Our words will leave us, to be another’s song. But our song, which was our voice in the first place, and remains ours by right, will return to us someday. It is not the way ahead. Yet even in that deathly quiet of remembering, you will know us. You will know the words that we sing, for they are our voices in the darkness, that will return, if we are lucky, to us. They will not sing the words that we have said. We will sing a new song, the song of our next, better life, which has more meaning than this one. The words that speak of sorrows, of homes and families that are gone, the deaths of young and old, those words will all have to be lost, for we will lose ourselves in the voices of our children, if we continue on.)) \((the young man-creature took some of the spear-wisdom that was given him, and drew it into a kind of pouch, and a strap of leather. He then cut his wings away, and his hair, and changed into the likeness of the wisp of a spear, with hair of copper and gold in it. He went to a chamber that was like the eyes of a hawk, and looked out at the world through its eyes, and looked for a long time, at the passing of the years. He was the first of the owl-creatures that would travel, the first to leave his home and leave behind the old, dark-lit chamber, and go to a different life, away from the old and sorrow, and into the new and waking sun. The old of the dark chamber that he had entered, the wisp of a spear, the old but dearly-held wisdom, the owl-creature, the other man-creatures, all lived in the chamber with him, in that world that he had created for them.))
:: 03.30.2021::
Copyright © Ernest Robles | Year Posted 2021
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