Larks Ascending

These cradles of green and pleasance.  These crescents of Tintagel.  As the moon and sun beguiles a lark, and remembers.  Through augured gate of dragons wise; across the grassy way to a tree aflame with angels, as Blake saw.  Strange signs upon the wall and the rye.  Signs of vulva, chalice, well and well-wishing.  Here at this sacred way.  This Path of Her.  O Rose, thou art healed.  By work and wielding of Albion.  Promise of New Jerusalem, a realm beyond these divisions of war.  For a table of plenty we pray, at mural and song.  That we might never forget our brothers and sisters.  That we might yet make friends of our enemies.  To fill a cup with living waters, and slake this thirst.  As it once was of our dreaming.  Our spirit.  By raven, hawk or wren.  Winged circling upon unseen movements of light.  Overtures and underscores of each successive Age.  M'ithriin, Talis, Caedmon.  I would wish these larks ascend.  Higher and higher still.  A king and his land, a servant and his people.  I speak as Kasi has always spoken.  Where there is hunger and anguish there is no king at all.  No queen, nor regency.  Only stolen thrones and false lineage.  A fallen realm.  You wish to know of the Oma'turi?  Never a conqueror.  At least not of flesh and foreign land.  Man begets himself upon the dreaming of his Age.  Visions of his peace-time, or his violence.  Dark Age warlord, dragon of Celtic echoes, medieval Christian prince.  A child, only glimpsed, now hidden from history for fear of his mythic power.  That ghost in the courtyard.  People say of him only as much as they know of themselves.  The supposed limits of a vassal.  The imagined breadth of a king.  It's a strange path, this interpretation and fulfilment of prophecy.  Signs of Kathari.  Legacies of Albigenses.  It is utterly hideous; this lie of a thousand years.  This false succession of wraiths.  But there are still stories, wild and dreaming.  Still lands pregnant with life and dragons wise.  Trees aflame with bright hosts of higher thought.  And Kasi still holds true to that shining promise of restoration.  Peace, but a sword.  The promise of truth, love and honour for all people.  Of all faiths, in every sovereign land.  All deserving of a place at the table, if earned.  Men must know why they fight.  And if they have no choice but to undergo such solemnity, who do they fight for?  Themselves or their people?  The true wealth of any world is not riches, but wisdom. Devotion and trust.  If the spirit be a lark what use is rising if we rise alone?  I tell you now, it is lonely on the hill.  Let no man be king lest he truly know the meaning of a chorus, and the struggles of his kingdom's most vulnerable.  Such is the living of a radiant, humble life.  Green and pleasant.  Hand, hilt and chalice of Albion's true regent.