The Mythos of Time

Where to begin is not a point of origin or an age of history we know.

It's an emptiness, a void that a string of notes and stones falling as so.

Out of formlessness the ground is made, where does it lead to?

Although it's not within any known place, are you going soon?

But soon is the moment stalled by the unknown sacred ground and really,

  it should go south, and the stillness of tone is lighter in such a deep route.

 

When the night is spoken and shades the stillness in yet humble timbre flow.

Hours silent in measured rustling of chime and whir of wind in fire's glow.

And the rising of element in the form destined and designed.

As though nowhere came to fall and throws out far off time.

But as it is, far away and quickly amiss, I walk in steps as a guide,

  connected to overhead sky, and of that I recall the phrasing in the tide.

Waves in layers, beats of life, pulses recollect the edges of shrill call.

The edge expanded, formed inside the stillness, and let the sharp key fall.

Upon a bridge giving a long path as if it were a place to follow.

No time was counted and in that span came a light white and hollow.

It echoed back and formed around edges then seen in the mists,

  and the phrasing was fixed and absolute, yet soft as any reeded flute.

 

Dry, cracked glass lie below moon's passing, once pleasant now it's strange.

Distant sound has broken the stillness of this range, but nothing indicates change.

Rivers ran wide alongside and sang but now whose thirst do they quench?

Waters drawn into shadow and skies dimmed that not one raindrop will drench.

Valleys in the vague, vantage points obscured, walking through a sandy sea,

 faltering dunes of endless tumbling, of the desolation only continuing crumbling.

 

There was no time there and I was in that span, I knew the tombs that lay about.

I stayed away for eons and kept light and fire centered and suffered no such doubt.

Empty were the deeps, all before I began, as a sailing starlight retreating back.

If no tomb is feared why not open the door? The barrier stands for light it may lack.

To shade and in shadow, to sleep, but my grasp is strong to leap from whatever well.

I fly out of view to another distant star, to find paths no hours govern, from my shell.

 But how did I come to this? Now which time do I miss?

The ranks of warriors of a battlefield went off to a place I cannot see, to champion fields.

Its warmth and light brushing is left in the wind, and the distinct ringing of shields.

Still standing temples of old, churches of solidarity in a faith long suffering and belief.

Stirring up clouds, round the stirred up leaves and time came to be but a sense of relief.

Travelers of the wind flying by, their secrets having been given freely under spoken tone.

In the scope of encompassing mists, they stood and thought they were alone.

 And caught up outside of moments unknown, a course of no telling was shown.

Wherever the winds turn and fare that they go far off to a place I cannot see,

I still hear something there, the captured breeze let loose by the standing tree.

Varied paths in time had governed the wayward flight of it all, the tested despair.

And having no glimpse of the past or present, just faint whispers through the air.

The layers beckoned from the overlapping arches, strong as stone and yet untold.

Manifesting as an image to the perceiving mind, of fire under a mantle of gold.

 The edge of an era settled into a moment and only some of it was recalled or told.

 

Ages in stones growing weak, and leading to a once rare lament under a dark sky.

Cursed and curses alike in lifetimes that are startling, and once was the desert's sigh.

With silence as a drawn out phase, it fails in strained speech that was broken.

All whispers through the air sigh, all passing sands of the hour, a mysterious token.

If lightning strikes it may shatter and splinter the wooden staff over flat stone of white.

That a copper glowing sun sets to an empty horizon, mocking back to nowhere in sight.

 Night's soft shade has once again dimmed sun's harshest and alternate light.

Through ways bare and featureless, the counting beats away, the timeline presents.

Filling all the gaps in black spaces and dark holes where time never relents.

The ageless face, an ancient time clinging to memory and lost dreams to manage.

And from the highest point, looking down upon valleys of vague vantage.

The lines have been invisible and measures without a cascading fall of it before.

And if a thousand of a thousand score rises with a piercing note, it must soar.

 Such is the circle in a sky that made way for the gate, the steps, the door.

 

And with the terrifying pursuit of fiends seeking to shred what can already escape.

Traveling north above their reach, and through carved mountain, lost to their gape.

The footfall of unnumbered steps had been laid and proved possible.

Measures of buried miles are imagined and calculated beyond fossil.

Outside the lamplight, there can now be seen barely a trace.

Many crumbled foundations, rock, marble, tree, and metric face.

 One thousand and ten thousand more, shifted to particle space.

 

And it is asked; Have you been down that way, are you going soon?

We'll speak of the long ago, there was gloom, and here is the moon.
Maybe you can walk with me, spy out that ancient dig? Where did they go?
And I dwelt in that night's glow, summoned only by countryside chateau.
And she sighs; Wherever I go to now is another passage I will find.

Every day I know they will arrive and it isn't by chance unkind.

 Smoke swirls from hidden pools, above they drift and unwind.

 

They never saw the moon and surely she laughs and narrows her gaze west.
Although with an army so strong, conquest was never worn upon her chest.
The hour goes away, again the night descends, here is the moon.
Everything is so deathly quiet, one can hear a distant, doleful tune.

And dread was silenced and unheard should it echo beyond its keep.

Some turned to face away from such illusion, but they all still sleep.

 Set in stones, in oaths, in paths, in scrolls, an age fell to the cursed deep.

 

The maiden who rose to general in rank, asked if any had been down the way.

Departing soon to five little towns and one where she had lived in that day.

The wonderful palace, a place of sands of white and long shimmering leaf.

A harbor beyond the push from a small quiet port, leading to the faraway east.

The gray of shade caught in stilled moment filtered beams of sun, speaks the muse.

And the moon picks up the later window to be seen of beams that it too will fuse.

 The figures that echo past the forgotten dynasties, have raced back to diffuse.

Calculated the tower may be, details long thought indeed, now long day of last.

Layers of ocean, and many seas give up the redeemed, every single line be cast.

Open hands for any of the lost and the rest that is possible and bound up in a place.

One million of a million score have bound around the visible in invisible space.

All the tombs cold still lay hold, is there nothing time will allow?

Steps past the time from here to that realm of the regal faded now.

 And what decrees were written for the era past the cunning brow?

 

I'd leap and fly around the bindings of earth and hope for fate in the silence I hear.

And in the deepening silence twilight glow lit so softly and whispers to my ear.

And I counted nothing of the hour when time isn't touching all, and falls.

Stand amid the stir of tidal forces, the raging storm fronts crash upon walls.

Run among the rushing opposite winds, float above the fray, find the design.

It's not the sun of the fixed scattered stars that could bring the last flame align.

 Awaiting the oncoming of what has yielded before, and gathered in a sigh. 

 

Cheering that could be heard from the arena now in ruins, was given its defeat.

The barrier of this time's wall to abide, chains from darkness then begins retreat.

When at last the heavens dispel, the mythos, the time from hereto is long indeed.

The grip of a still counting design from here, now, is just eternity the wise will need.

For tales transcended across time and its dark design, its empty works in vain.

 Repeated mythology cast a wider net, a more powerful spell to obtain.

 

Scrabbling aboard ships that always disappear into some strange fog and mist.

It would be the timed turn of tides that rolled away, for all things untwist.

Under fixed stars and the philosophy of lost thoughts or what they mean.

They yet set sail for any truth in the golden exaggeration of a dream.

Time defeats itself by the forgotten past, a sense of change in the ring of a chime.

 But I'd answer that it wasn't real, the mythos of time.

 ©Iggy 1996

 

 

 

*From notes regarding the verses that touch upon the historical figure of Joan D'Arc,

my spare translations into French of bits and parts:
Toute ces jours j'ai su qu'ils viendraient, et ce n'était pas un hasard.
Ils n'ont jamais regardé la lune, et elle rirait sûrement et rétrécirait son regard.
 
Additional content from 1998