| The walk of the shaman |
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The Shaman walked the dusty road. He’d travelled far and wide.
He knew that, as a seeker, all the answers lay inside.
He’d been a thousand times around and still he was not done.
He always slept beneath the moon and walked beneath the Sun.
He’d seen the crystal towers. He’d traversed the snowy peaks;
He’d drunk with masters; great and small; he’d heard what no one speaks.
He’d crafted wondrous artefacts across his many lives;
He would leave them for discovery by students of Surprise.
Temple life had served him, as had abstinence and rest.
So too had the cities though their flow was much repressed.
Architecture, art and music, poetry and story;
All forms of creation could be held aloft in glory.
But always on the roadside sat a little boy in pain;
He had no home, no roof to give him shelter from the rain.
The Shaman knew the little boy but only from a distance;
From his memories of youth; from a long ago existence.
The little boy would smile at the Shaman as he passed,
But the Shaman, weaving strands of wonder, always passed so fast.
He walked the road with power, purpose, deep within his mind,
And the boy would wait and hope because the Shaman’s face was kind.
But the Shaman never stopped to give the little boy his time,
Or an artefact he’d made, or riddle or a rhyme.
The Shaman hardly noticed that the little boy was there,
For the little boy was quiet; he had courtesy and care.
One fine summer evening beside the dusty road,
The Shaman found a pleasant spot to build the night’s abode.
He laid his sack and cloak down and he made himself a Fire,
On which he heated Water whilst he sat and played his lyre.
The Shaman knew it not, but the little boy was near,
In an old abandoned farmhouse, trying to sleep away his fear.
He heard the Shaman’s music on the Air; it stilled his heart.
But the Shaman seemed so far away; the two were worlds apart.
Then, beneath the Shaman’s Fire, came a tremor from the Earth,
As she sang a song of harmony, of unity, of birth,
And the tremor sent a jolt of joy so fast and sharp and swift,
That the ground beneath the Fire gave a whinny and a lift.
The Fire boomed, exploding sparks of red into the night,
And in seconds they had done their work – the farmhouse was alight.
Licks of flame and red hot kisses galloped up its walls,
And suddenly the Shaman heard the muffled plaintive calls_
Of the little boy inside, trapped in smoky roasting heat.
The Shaman sprang, in horror and in panic, to his feet.
The farmhouse door was flaming. So he charged and shouldered through.
His instinct told him ‘this is what your life’s been leading to.
‘This is where you find the part of you that you forgot.
‘Bring that child through before the fire gets too hot.’
And in burning searing valour, the barefoot Shaman strode
Up the molten farmhouse stairs. His magnetic field glowed.
And in the furthest room he found the sobbing little boy.
He held him close and looked him in the eyes through tears of joy.
The little boy cried also and their tears mixed and fused.
And in that moment neither were abandoned or confused.
In the sky above them howled a wind of heavy cloud
“Thunder! Rip the sky apart!” The Shaman yelled aloud.
And as he yelled, the heavens opened, pouring down their love,
It was the rain of sweet forgiveness coming straight from up above.
The farmhouse sighed and steamed and hissed; tamed, no longer wild.
And from the ashes walked the barefoot Shaman and the child.
They sat in wet and blissful silence, by the dusty road,
The Shaman spread his cloak of warmth across them till they glowed.
And when he woke next morning, he seemed to be alone,
But in his heart he felt the little boy had found his throne.
And there he sits within the Shaman, helping him to BE
As he walks the dusty road until he meets infinity.
© Simon Welsh Poetry 26th October 2010 |
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