Friday, December 23, 2011

More Phoenix keeps emerging

Here is the end of section I and the start of section II, which emerged as I was preparing for my trip tomorrow. Maybe some more will join these before the day is through, I don't know yet.

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There are groves hanging with blossoms,
fair fruits which never fade there —
holy beneath the heavens, treasures of the forest.
The flowers never fall fallow to the ground there
from the lovely wood-beams, but there wondrously
the boughs in the trees are always bearing fruit again—
at every season the brightest bowers stand
on the green grassy plain, joyously adorned
with power of the Holy One. The form of the forest
is never broken. There a sacred odor abides
throughout that delightful land. It will never be changed
ever forever, not before the Wise One who shaped it
at its origin finishes his ancient work. (71-84)


II.

That wood is watched over by a wondrously fair
fowl, strong of feathers, which is called the Phoenix.
There that lone-dweller observes that land,
brave-minded of bearing. Death shall never harm him
in that desired land, so long as the world remains.
He must behold the course of the sun
and come toward God’s candle,
the gem of gladness, eagerly attending it,
when up comes the most noble of stars
over the waved sea, gleaming from the east,
the Father’s olden work dazzling with jewels,
the bright token of God. The stars are hidden,
departed beneath the waves towards the west,
obscured in the daybreak and the dark night
descends dusky. Then the strong-winged bird
proud in its wandering, in the mountain stream
under the sky, eagerly makes witness over the water
when the light of the heavens comes up from the east
gliding over the broad expanse of the sea. (85-103)

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