Friday, September 27<\/p>\n
Forgot to write that yesterday, in the middle of everything else \u2014 or maybe it was the day before \u2014 I got out some of my journal binders and started reading from the very first pieces.\u00a0 <\/span>I was mainly struck by the poems and also \u201cThe Journey.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>They are so bleak, stark empty landscapes, no color or softness.\u00a0 <\/span>Reading them now, I see the landscape of PTSD.\u00a0 T<\/span>his is what my emotional life felt like.<\/p>\n Written some time during my freshman year (56-57) at the suggestion of a teacher that I try writing to music.\u00a0 I was 14 years old. \u00a0<\/span>The music I chose was the “Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen Virgin” from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.<\/a> \u00a0The Sacrificial Dance is the last piece. \u00a0Go to about 26 minutes.<\/p>\n The Journey<\/p>\n Gnarled and misshapen, the great tormented trees stand, their twisted limbs dripping with ancient moss.\u00a0 <\/span>Thick grey-green vines strangle the trees and lie seething in the underbrush.\u00a0 <\/span>The lurid rays of the dying sun drench the forest with their gory brilliance.<\/p>\n A man, lost and frightened by the greedy clutching vines, is trying to escape the trees which seem to be writhing horribly in the eerie glow.\u00a0 <\/span>A gush of low, blood-red laughter floats through the tortured branches.\u00a0 <\/span>A bat drops from the blasted vault of the sky, wheeling past his head, chilling him with a cold sliver of fear.\u00a0 <\/span>He plods on, terrified.\u00a0 <\/span>Another burst of evil laughter forces him to stumble down a bank of pebbles into a murky pool.\u00a0 <\/span>The slimy water stains his clothes as, horrified, he clambers out and staggers on.\u00a0 <\/span>The laughter becomes hysterical, convincing him that he will be imprisoned forever in this mad maze.<\/p>\n But then the din of a great swarm of insects tells him that there may yet be a way out.\u00a0 <\/span>Hope swelling inside, he runs toward the sound.\u00a0 <\/span>A bird shrieks a warning, the shuddering earth drops away before him.\u00a0 <\/span>At his feet is the edge of a precipitous cliff, a cascade of stones and rubble plummeting to the wide golden plain below.\u00a0 <\/span>He does not stop to wonder that now the sun is blazing hotly from the summit of the empty sky.\u00a0 <\/span>“Escape” is the only thought that flashes clear in his bewildered brain.\u00a0 <\/span>He begins the descent of the cliff, half-scrambling, half-running down a narrow ledge.\u00a0 <\/span>Suddenly the way is blocked.\u00a0 <\/span>Muscles cracking with effort, he begins the gigantic labor of scaling a mountain of huge rocks.<\/p>\n A moment ago a sunlit plain stretched level before him, now the ground ripples into primeval hills, the shattered arches of the sky close in on a strange, vague world.\u00a0 <\/span>Distorted shapes glide fiendishly in the unreal glow of bygone centuries; hideous, savage \u2014 their sinister forms whirl insanely about him.\u00a0 <\/span>Through these bizarre shadows a cave looms before him, stalactites gleaming like teeth.\u00a0 <\/span>His reeling mind cannot tell him whether he is running or floating, but at last he reaches the sanctuary.<\/p>\n A shaft of sunlight, quivering in the still air, and the exhilarating warble of a bird greet him.\u00a0 <\/span>His journey is ended.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sometime in the spring of \u201959<\/p>\n Whither?<\/p>\n From the utter darkness beyond eternity, past immense brimming spheres, and through the pulsing chasms between the stars, the tangled path was laid.\u00a0 <\/span>A solitary spark, adrift in the twilight depths, pursues its course.\u00a0 <\/span>Beyond the dark lanterns, across nebulous wastes it wanders under the vaulted cavern of absolute destiny.<\/p>\n A promontory awash with mists and liquid cloud, a tower with fettered casements, a stone webwork contracting \u2014 the shadow of the flame is flung into a windy hall.\u00a0 <\/span>The pillars melt, the marble floor, cold, polished, extends flat and dark eternally and beyond its endless end the sky is quiet with dawning shafts of light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday, September 27 Forgot to write that yesterday, in the middle of everything else \u2014 or maybe it was the day before \u2014 I got out some of my journal binders and started reading from the very first pieces.\u00a0 I … Continue reading