Ray of Love

I turn the pages of my memory, back through a thousand years,
I recall that dim and nebulous age,
When Darkness gave birth to the shining Light of all the spheres,
Receiving the Great Seed's heritage.

We were met by a flustered Mother's smile, so deep,
Who wiped her beautiful hands from the clay.
And upon her brow lay a seal, ancient and steep,
Of renouncement, and love, and parting's sway.

We did not know yet how the darkness would rave,
Deafened by the fiery, creating Word,
How kings and wanderers would enter the cave
To bow down to foundations they'd not heard.

How the beating of millions of hearts would merge and start,
Responding with echoes that roll and swell,
How the Son and the Father stand, taking their part,
Clad in a single armor, to serve and quell.

We had not yet seen the many wonders to be,
The unearthly, all-encompassing faith,
How the Crucified One would rise up, alive and free,
How the fanatics would mock Him to His death…

All this was still to come—later, but for now,
We stood in the garden and were still.
And the flowers bent down, and the river hushed its flow,
Hearing the Word of the initial Will.

The night breathed coolness and a deep repose
In misty dreams of olive groves that keep,
And saved from all the noonday heat that glows
The stigmata of cities, buried deep.

Darkness coiled over the planet, sleeping,
And in the sky, the fire's banners flew.
By winds and mists and heavy silence sleeping,
The mountains bowed their heads and nothing knew.

And in the valley, parched and desolate,
While the whole world in stupor lay and slept,
None saw the desert sand, by some strange fate,
The tracks of the Three Great Ones softly kept.

The Earth fell silent, waiting for the Sign.
The Mother trembled. Silent stood the Sire,
Not seeing yet above the head, in line,
A rainbow crown of faint and spectral fire.

But then – a flutter of an angel's wing,
A sudden sheaf of radiant, blazing light,
Which had no need of any other thing
To cast the slithering fears back to the night.

And, like a sigh that drifted over land,
From heavy bonds discovering the key –
Beneath the morning Star that took its stand,
A wondrous Child awoke for all to see.

It happened long ago, in Palestine's deep wild,
Yet still we bow our heads, in reverence reconciled,
Before the mighty secret of the Cosmic Soul
That came to dwell within a human son, made whole.

By the river, a wandering clan was in a swarm –
An unwise and a dark, benighted tribe!
And none of them attempted, through the grey and uniform,
Into the present time's true core to probe.

Into the stagnant waters, breath of living Fire
Was sent by the Abode, the living Source.
"But One who comes after is greater in His power,"
The departing Teacher tells us on His course.

You stroked a blade of grass upon the yellow ground,
You turned, and we fell silent, held in thrall,
For on Your calm, cold brow we saw, at last, profound,
The Cross of Love and sorrow, great and all.

And it flashed before us like a falling star,
That quiet, lilac evening, soft and deep,
When the Cross that burns above Your head, afar,
Would be accepted by frail shoulders, in Your keep.

And later, lighting up the cities in the night,
The pavements on the sleepy, quiet streets,
Above a cross the same, a star will shine its light,
Gathering those You saved in holy feats.

It all began so simply, and so plain,
One evening, in a time so far away,
When stars, just newly born, began their reign
And trembled o'er the mountain, dark and grey.

The sunset smoked, a lamp that would not cease,
And He was silent, noticing us not,
Until the eternal cicadas hushed their peace,
And the flying "now" to a halt was caught.

I see it all again, as it occurred,
When He arose with one single, fluid grace –
What power in Him shimmered and stirred!
What abysses showed behind Him in that space!

Within His eyes, Eternity would beat,
Ablaze with myriads of worlds and suns,
And one felt sharply time's own swift retreat –
The centuries that pass as moments once.

But then – the sounds of higher choirs grew dim,
And once again, a man stood in our sight,
Who bore, as priceless gifts brought back from Him,
The shattered fragments of the stars' own light.

For just a brief, a magical, short span,
A tiny key unlocked for us the core,
That He was all – and I, and my friend, the man,
And time, the universe, and – was the Door.

How piercing is the Word that slid on down
Along the bloody incisions of the sunset's hue!
And once again, a lonely cypress, dark and crowned,
Divides the real to "now" and "then" anew.

And once again – the crosses climbing towards the sky,
The lampads burning in the field's expanse,
The pages we have yet to open, you and I,
Of pain stretched out for centuries, by chance.

In this life, I return here once again,
Beneath the tent of fading, darkening blue,
Where years like teardrops made of blood seep from the plain –
The silent exhalations of the Desert's view.

And, gently caressed by tragedy's soft breath,
I'll pray now to the bread that was broke and shared,
By golden rays of the Evening Star, beneath
Which to the sleepy sky I am nailed and bared.

He gave to me with Him almost no thing –
No parables, advice, or learned lore,
Just a flickering gaze, when His eyes' suffering
Began to melt in death's fog evermore.

The world stood still, a-tremor, like a bush burned dry,
When quietly, a razor on the skin –
A Word flowed out from human lips, a cry:
«My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Him?!…»

The dawn was trembling over dusty Judah's land,
Shaking the final remnants of the morning's sleep.
In great expectancy, and cold, a trembling band,
A late spring entered into the city, deep.

The pillars of the poplars, tall and pyramid-like,
Were silent still in horror and in grief,
And in a yellowed pouch, a wandering beggar, on his hike,
Carried the scent of fields that bore no sheaf.

All nature held its breath in one deep, inward sigh
Before the Mystery blazing from within.
And all the hopes of ages that were waiting by
Stood listening at the door, to let them in.

From out the flame of one small, flickering lamp,
A shadow darted on the wall of stone –
A fragment of a garden, from which a sudden ramp
In the ringing, silent Garden of Gethsemane, alone.

And then, with myriads of invisible wings unfurled,
A miracle of miracles to the world was shown –
The sun's smile lit up every face in all the world,
And the astonished forest whispered in a tone.

A bird-call bloomed and blossomed through the Universe,
All earthly nature started then to sing,
Beholding the eternal's victory over the perverse,
And knowing the One Life's triumph, blossoming.

Emerging from the Dark, the final act drew near,
The climax of the ancient, sacred rite,
Though none who lived on Earth could see it clear,
Lost in the slippery mire of their fright.

Thus legends of great origins were born,
Reflecting living sources, pure and true,
And a caressing breeze, in wonder, gently torn,
Rocked frozen verses on the grass and dew.

Almighty Time, the tablet and the shroud,
Where to forget is both our fate and prize!
But the heavy haze of centuries, a future cloud,
Will not eclipse the light within those eyes.

We cannot forget the eyes that mirrored all –
Life, and Death, and Salvation, and the Mystery,
And the worlds fell silent, watching Her appall,
As we do – full of rapturous misery.

Taking shelter in a crimson, heavenly cloak,
The sunset lay, a pilgrim tired and spent.
How – for us, who see the trivial in the grand folk –
How to perceive the Great in the small event?!

And, as if uniting the Beginning with the End,
The cosmic calls announced to every sphere,
That He was once more with the Father, to transcend,
Transformed into the immortal Word, now here.