Stone's Source - Part #III /52
Rather than glorify this or any day
I would rather glorify the moment,
the unfailing moment which surpasses
us and which asks for no glory.
I do not choose to glorify the
words which make up the stories
told in hope and promise. Rather
I choose to glorify the simplest
stories, which end as through man
did not tell them and which end
as though there is no ending.
It is not enough that the glorification
of the spirit must find form,
or that the meddling of gods
seeks shelter within the breast
of people. It is not fitting that
their heart finds glory in
worshipping those gods, or that the
very blood flows in the river at the
alter of worship. It passes in the
night, as the glory of those gods
is hollow, that they speak in the
acid tongues of the leaves of grass
or the rustling of ripe rice,
or in the steady sway of bamboo.
And because words are ultimately
not understandable, I do not choose
to glorify their sounds though, without
me they will glorify themselves.
I do not choose to glorify the single-
statements across all the headlines of
history, written on walls, or parchment.
And if I choose, they disappear, but
when they are ignored, they grow,
they multiply, they encompass,
they compress.
And where the glory of those
single words, in groups, reside they
build cities, just as does man, in
systems of pattern and pre-pattern.
The structure is if, as by gods
who climb for man, who speak for
man, who glorify man. But like cities
built on hills which disappear, they
return. From that knowledge can only
wonder why the edges fray, why the
folds show wear, why the sheen of use
is not fitting in the halls of waste.
But glory is not visible; not the colors
which expose more to the eyes
than the shapes of change, not the
first spoken rudiments of doubt,
not the hero of worlds not known,
not a post script. In truth, glory
is simply a name
of anyone willing to take it
and wear it
like their own, as we all do.
I do not choose to glorify that
person, or the simple answers which
names bestow, or the lives which
encompass the art of meditation. It
is they who rather glorify us, such
as we are, such as is time, such as is such.
I do not choose to give or take from
that glory which from prayer our most
desperate parts succumb. I do not glorify
the lonesome moment, I do not choose to
glorify separations, I do not choose
to glorify that which brings separation
together, or that which reminds it of
its duty, or that which in the minds of
man and woman reminds it of itself,
like all good thoughts, like dust.
I will not here glorify any of the
sexes or their tired dangling which
in age, waxes and under a moon of
attractions call and which without
glory can not exist. I do not choose to define
the flesh from which glory grows as it
tastes of me and mine, as it ignores
that which is offered and pleads for that
which, in effigy, burns. I cannot here
hope to sculpt that edge, I can not
here write the lines of that face against
black sky, I can not here construct
tyranny without spit and sinew.
I seek that which I can glorify and
I find again that it is not an option
for which we all escape. It is not a
vow in the myth of union or reunion,
it is not a celebration within destiny,
It does not create, or procreate,
or die. For glory, I seek that which
glows, after the arc of day completes
it phase and we can rest without
shape, forgiven.
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