Things
often end the way they begin. As if the secret of a thing's passing is somehow
encoded in its formation. Birth, made all the more precious for containing
within it a future echo of its own death. And dissolution, the ultimate
counterpoint of a bloom at its fullest. At least, that's the accepted wisdom.
Angels, magicians and poets have a far broader conception of time, and life itself.
They say summer can't last forever. But of course it can. You just need to breach
the known laws of causality. Tachyonic ebb and flow, like the tidewaters of an
eternal dreaming. The blink of an angel's eye. Faster than light or lament. I
suppose I've always hated endings even though I know better than most that life
is change. Constant, transformative. Irksome. Which is why the notion of an
eternal summer is so alluring to those of us who can bend time. The physicists
have it wrong, you see. You don't need a vast amount of exterior energy to warp
the continuum. I mean, it's one way, but not the only way. Truly, all you need
is imagination, patience, and a lens. The blink of an angel’s eye, as I said.
I'll stop there, lest I give away too many trade secrets. Poets and Magi have
been doing this for aeons, of course. However, the garbled mess that men call chronology
is not the result of true artists. No, those desolate horrors of history are
the work of meddling wraiths and their occulted human priests. Spiritual
wickedness in high places, as it says in Ephesians. But I don't write this to
discuss those wraiths. Not today. Today is a beginning, even if witnessed in
reverse. Because it’s not about what I lose. It's about what those I care for can
gain. Experience, camaraderie. Even hard-won wisdom. Everybody needs a
companion. Especially sailors and star-gazers. The ship gets lonely from time
to time. The endless night, the shifting seas. But it takes courage to set a
beloved shipmate ashore, to grant them the liberty and land they crave. It
takes kindness too. I was once granted grace like that. Upon rivers, amid
flowers. A lantern that led me back to myself. That magical night of a thousand
stars. I cherish it still. I chase it always. So, the goal is never a permanent
end to the loneliness. One must aim to simply inspire those who travel with us,
and let them go when those ports begin to call. Summer can't last forever? Of
course it can. That's what poetry is for. One of its many wonderous uses.
Music, friendship, laughter; these things bind us in mutual affection. And for
those brief moments we are seen and cherished. If there is any abundance left
in this terrifying, beautiful cosmos then it is my oath to share it, as my
Maker intended. In fact, such a divine oath was my very name once, hidden in
angelic script. I use only epithets and titles now. Poet, teacher, healer. Madman.
I crave depth, I suppose. And insight. But this insight, this inner clarity of vision,
isn't found in things we acquire through time. It's found in the love we give away, those we let go when necessary. We bid them safe travels and good fortune, truly. And, if we're lucky,
those same souls who once sailed with us will remember our connection. The numinosity of how we began.
A sparkle in the eye, like a winking star.
