Buddha, Hinduism, Mithraism, Baha'i, & etc.Cave Letters: 2000 Years Old :: An Archeology of WordsAn Archeology of Words
Having begun this thread on the subject of Caves-archeology, I continue with a different sort of archeology--one of words. :roll:
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CRYSTAL COOL WATER
The poet-song-writer is a hunter consciously and aggressively active in the hunting process of composition, of the recording of history, a sort of archeology in words. The poetry and the song is what’s hunted down and transformed by that process in the taming of a wilderness of language...The poet-song is an intermediary hunting form beyond form, truth beyond theme through woods of words tangled and tremendous, through a forest of mystic meaning and festivals of joy, delight and lightness where laughter is the key.-Ron Price with thanks to John Taggart, Songs of Degrees, Essays on Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, University of Alabama Press, London, 1994, p.174.
Myriads of mystic tongues find utterance
in one speech and myriads of hidden mysteries
are revealed in a single melody*
and the poet hunts in forests of mystic meaning,
searching for the tongues of utterance,
pursued by hounds,
clawed by talons,
with pitiless ravens lieing in wait on the mountain side.
And while he hunts other hunters stalk
and assault him in the bright meadows of his search.
His head falls to the earth, even brims with blood,
but Peace comes at last........
......and the dark night of tangled trees
is no more, only the tall independent pines,
so straight and tall and spacious,
with the sun falling though their intersticies
on the book of his own self,
dead at last in a summit of glory left behind.
Yes, left on the earth this self--beside
the crystal cool sweet water
that the Cup-Bearer bringeth!
in the journey unto the Crimson Pillar
on the snow-white path.**
Ron Price
11 October 1995
*Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, Arabic, 16.
** Baha’u’llah, Seven Valleys, pp.55-59.
STILL ONE OF THE DANGEROUS
I tell you she is dangerous!
-Roger White, “The Pioneer”, Another Song Another Season, George ronald, 1979, p.40.
Happy birthday to Hand of the Cause Amatu’l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum! In celebration of her 85th birthday.
-Ron Price, Rivervale, Western Australia.
You are a symbol, a treasure, entrusted
to our still frail and unworthy hands,
part of that legacy that time will never dim.
We who have been impregnated by
your energizing love can not describe
your life, can not recount a worthy tribute
to all you have done in these still tumultuous
stages of our history where your life is so
inextricably interwoven in the fabric of it all.
Yes, your were his helpmate, his shield,
his tireless collaborator and, yes,
you knew much more than we our loss, then,
and the little that was the little that we knew.
You have shared the story of his victories
as your vital, slender hands touched his tragedy
and sorrow like torn wings, memory’s etchings.
And always you keep calling us, for him and Him,
to untried heights: living symbol of the traveller,
continual reminder of movement, incarnation
of the pioneer, of frankness, of the courteous smile.
May we grow close to thee in the innermost recesses
of our hearts, amidst these shining mansions that
the hand of time has given to the world, near these shrines
where you now walk and the very weight of history
rushes to your support as you gather breath.
It seems you are still one of the dangerous.
Ron Price
27 June 1995
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