The Rainbow Warrior's Quest

The road that passes through the fire is a hard road, 
And it is a long road between fires.
I pray to the hearth fire, the ancient flame
The fire of the long night
The fire of the eternal dawn:
Let the vigilant eye and the sleeping wisdom
Flash and kindle in the heart of the endless serpant,
Let the wheel of power turn
One more time; let those
Who stand upon the shore of chaos
Walk again the long road
And send their prayers higher
Than the smoke which never fails.
Higher than the smoke of a thousand perilous cities.
The sons of men and the daughters of men, 
Brothers of my heart and sisters of my flesh
Are lonely in the cities
And I have gone. 
The hawk has forsaken the cliffs by the shores of the sea
And the pine trees less tall than the smoke of the hearth fire,
The cliffs have renounced the void, the void has forsaken the sky,
And the eagle has forsaken his single
Mountain by the shore of the desert,
And chaos is reborn in my cities.
Where are those whose arms embraced my shoulders,
Who swam like fish in the starry sea of chaos?
Where are those who embraced my neck, my head,
And flew like birds in the flashing void,
Like young serpents in the jewelled night,
Who danced like flowers, like stars, 
Whose words sprang like sparks in the hearthfire of my heart?
Where are those who forged in one night 
A new heaven and a new earth,
Who devoured with reverent abandon
The sky and the sea and the deepest fires of the earth?
Gods of the earth, they walk the streets of the city
For their road has delivered them
Into a strident wilderness of unbending towers.
My brothers and sisters kindle their fire
In the lonely night of the city, and are warm,
But their hearth knows me not.
My brothers and sisters abide in change
And build temples to the crescent moon
In the heart of the changeless and unhallowed cities;
They pray in the moonless night and broadcast
Their love like pale vapor
In the city where their hearthfire burns alone.
They pray in the moonless night and broadcast
Their love like pale vapor
In the city where their hearthfire burns alone.
They blaze like beacons, yet the city knows them not.
My brothers and sisters, blessed in the light
Of the morning star,
Kindle their own fires in the land of the eagle
And sanctify their road with the feathers of the firebird.
And one stood holy in the coiling cedar smoke
Speaking of his journey, speaking of the road
Of a million suns, fear and weakness
Beaten from his shoulders, chest and thighs,
Buffeted in the smoky twilight
By the wings of the eagle and the wings of the hawk.
One drank the waters of Babylon 
And prophecied the downfall of cities,
Saw the world as it was his inner sight
Clarified by the rising of the false dawn.
One remained in bondage to the Lord of Death
For the space of seven sunsets
Gazing through the eyelid of the horizon
Contemplating the doom that never falls
Anticipating the rieterated oblivion
Of the luminous night, inert and beatific,
With the sun in his belly
And the moon in his navel
And mercury ascendant in his solar plexus.
The Angel of Death fell before him
And gave into his keeping
The Key of Changes
And the two-edged sword of regeneration.
One stood strangely smiling in the shadow of her lover
And was baptized in the magnetic fountain
That loomed with the intensity of ten iron whales
In the valley of his brilliant madness.
One identified her karma with the childhood of the sun,
Reflected on the source of all radiance,
Was perplexed by the superfluous omniprescence
Of her mind and her body,
And was granted the abundant love of the world.
All roads are One, all men
Travel in unity from the time
They first feel the road receeding
Under their feet, and hear the sound
Of one hand drumming, one man
Pouring his energy into the night.
One hand upon the loom of the fire
Shuttles between night and morning,
And very eye sees truth
Revealed in the heart of the fire.
The sun unravels the stones, the trees,
Unleashes the hawk in the morning sky,
And in the bright web of the wind
The eyes of new-found brothers glance and shimmer,
Catching the single ray of light
That streams from the prism of the inner mind.
All roads are one, and the gods of the earth
Shall weave their roads together
In the single path of wisdom,
And each shall drum silently for his brother
In the secret mountain fastness of his heart;
And brother shall say to brother,
I knew you in Babylon, and your identity
Is unchanged.  I have sought your handclasp
Around a thousand fires, and you have not failed me yet.
The wind springs from the mountain
And returns to its source.
The dayspring winds its way from beginning to beginning.
New days pass like cellular memory,
And the interminable changes wrought by no man's will
Pass over the face of stone and river and tree.
                     Page Brownton

Copyright © 1966 Page Brownton