sustain."
"But why? Why save child and destroy man?"
She turned towards the city, though only a dust more clouded, gave any sign of its past. "Why not? Blood for blood. Timeless, Woman has been dragged, lured to bed stones and founted blood for the Sin of her Being. She the river inner to be spilled open by staff wood or flesh and drench life into living. The terror Nature howled and gave Woman. The fruitful God grieved, begged forgiveness onto her and gave Child. What is left is Man-made and crumbles. Belongs at Woman's feet though its prayer is wild with teeth. She has only to stride and the Man-made is crushed.
Yet some men do enter desert more as Woman. Bloodied, all knowledge, all brute, raped from their skulls whether by self or the other claws of greeding. They flee with their cages flapping open hearted to sun, to wind and are thus in spirit, Woman. As close as man can be to Woman.
These salvaged make better Man than men. For a time, at least " Then She begin to softly cry, leaving her face, hair into the Beggar's shoulder, her arms tucked around him gently.
She cried a long time, in an even melody of trembling and small breaths. The Beggar said nothing but with his hands stroking her hair, caressing her upper back.
When subsided, he cupped her face in his hands stained form his ordeal and spoke to the pink eyes washed paler behind strands "I understand now and if I was a little madder, I'd call you Mother."
She smiled, kissed him on the cheek. "And if I was a little saner I would call you Son."
Silent again, they walked towards the mountains, touching now without touching.
He asked in a little while.
"What is your name?"
"What is the time when the sun is gouged to a blood puss of burst and men's eyes tremble of dread at the change of incandescent?"
"Your name is Eve, then?"
"Because you are a good man. If you had been an evil man, you would have called me Dawn."
Silent again, they strode, limbs feeding upon the sun, seething in harvest.
The woman spoke: "Your Father would be proud of you."
Startled he stopped, turned her toward his widening eyes.
"You know my Father?"
"A Woman knows many fathers. The father of her father, her father, the father of her child, the father of her child's child. All the same. Their lands caress her skin into Hope, their hooves drum her skull into despair. But no, I did not know your father, only of him, through you."
"But I have not spoken of him."
"A Woman's thing. A burden. You have iron balls, I have crystal ones." Her wild laughter stirred nothing but a boyish grin and her own wisps of hair.
The walking began, then she asked:
"Man, tell what you seek in this place of ruptured soul?"
"A word, only a word."
"What word?"
"I don't know it. I seek it in the way a hand opens and closes helplessly trying to gather more water than it can.”
"Then, tell me what words you have found, Man, and perhaps the one lost will be known onto its sole absence."
So the Beggar discarded his past into her own collection as they distanced themselves from the city's eyes. He told her of his Father, of his Father's death. He spit the tale of disciples disguardianship of himself and his father's. Truth as they began resurrect new walls with old bricks. The he flowed to the six days full of reach, hollow of failure. Of gods sold cheap but carried dear, of men who know the weight of masks but fear their fall. Told her of mirrors that cannot reflect, of mirrors placed before mirrors, of mirrors windowed in walls, crossed in pain so the looker is quartered to the winds.
The judgement and sentence. Neither defeat or victory, yet failure when the wounded will not drag to dressing for fear of salt. Told her how he could curtail a beating but could not vanquish the philosophy of a beating. The bush shook a little but would not part its game to his hand.
Then down below the downtrodden he went where empty hands have a paradise sinless amongst neighbours, for none have anything to covet. Where despair is not the music of mad or the idle thoughts of the slaven but walls hard in the gut and forms a different man. A man who will not give up or down or out but rather gives as the sand gives to surf; a deception of servitude; passive inclines into resistance, the crest never victorious, though the small plain overwhelmed. The passage of time, yet the grains remain clung as a grip sucking at any heel come down.
He spoke along of the slaves and cried a little, for there failure had torn away throats in its fall. Describing the King, he framed anti-Man, gluttonous swallow upon tiny feet, pudge hands drunk with flesh. Yet what he could not do amongst feet, low of trodden, neither could he enlighten the crown all life a dark well, light swallowed mouth to bottom
Then of one-legged boys, unresolved dreams till unto the death of a father which denied the quest of the sons. A mockery of a grieved masks pretending the dead would arise from a faith in words and endless, useless, debate.
And a giant's love that drew its battle lines haphazard in mad yet as pure a thing as the Beggar had seen passionate yet. Until at least this She beside him, smoothing his flails with an occasion of caress upon his back. Turning upon her eyes mooned with compassion, their pink damp with comprehension he asked her: "What then is the word passed by, unseen or even onto discard as if like hands fired by the rope, now opened to cooler death."
"Man, the Word was heard, seen, used all through this. It was hammer upon the skull anvil, bone into fire, sun etch upon lifting brow. Call its sister gall on impale, call its brother lips ravishing lip, call its child Hope licking a sythe's edge of flower. And remember its Mother howls from caves of a lizard's droppings, its Father has a mountain upon his back yet scampers free in the dusk. It breathes blood scorched black with curls of skin, yet can speak without the stirring of a dove.
Bitter the salt, it lies upon its own succulence of juices, dripping, crippling, into an old woman's crevasses. It shreds Gods, births Gods, and piles corpses upon its tongue for the pleasures of its Gods. Yet all Gods know it even those who beg it life.
For how did the Father hold the squirming, Love above Death? What makes disciple discard or a boy break away like truth falling away from the tree ripened?; what stems his journey, Man? How are the Gods sold, by what illusion and by that illusion how is cheap carried like great stone precious or heavy of hollow? What holds the Mask, what blinds the mirrors; what harbours in Law yet gives escape to justice? For Law can the judge sentence, what gives divide to innocence and its twin: guilt?
Yes, you are right, Man the Beatings continue, the beaten continue, the Poor hold to life and the Slaves give their death freely but what is it they all anguish? A king's rule is harsh iron, Man, yet a boy's stump is soft steel, how does such exist as gather in your skull galloping round, round these signposts high of folly?
The dream has real when you frame the word, Man just as the Father held his Sons without release. The word is the same for Sons, yet binds to Law not knife. But the Giant's binds to love though mad, mad thongs across his teeth. And even I, Woman is only the Word, mad upon my back, blood splashed across a universe falling at all wish of any Visions.
Hands to his shoulders, a solitary tear draining blood from each stranded cheek. She spoke with a rising wind of darkness ending " The Word is Belief, man. You have only to Believe and its mad, joyous terror of World cradles in that Word alone."
Such a ridiculous simple answer, he would have laughed, even shrugged but for the total fire of her Being she had concentrated in her speech, the madness of her eyes allowed no easy ridicule, not for least his own peril of life.
Faced with Answer, laid so heavy upon his shoulders, its bronze challenge at his soul, he sought old refuge in questions.
"But of what shall I believe in?"
She exploded.
A flick of her wrists sent him tumble head over heels. Recovering in the dust of his reversal, he looked up and at first the sun's glare obscured his frightened vision. Mind at mirage's lap, it though
t her now towering at ten feed stand. But sand shunned the hot beams, settled and he saw She stood upon a large rock, a few feet away.
"BELIEVE? BELIEVE?" she raged, the knife out again dancing, pointed for his eyes fixation.
"BELIEVE IN THIS, MAN!" the shout followed by her arm rigidly, rigidly descending, rapid to instant stop at side, where the hand released its grip. Incredible, the knife penetrated an inch of stone and held; a hair from her own hard foot. As if it had chosen easier rest than her flesh would give.
She continued in half rant, her body still, half guarding the sun from his eyes "Believe in the stone, the rock, man. For is it not as faithful as the dog bitch? Though slow to follow, leave here and it will be found on your return. Call it mother, for it shadows the harsh and blinds the wind. Call it master, for a stride on its back serves greater vision. Drench your eyes of its nakedness daily in the sun, its warmth when you curl around it nightly will hold fire longer than any woman's tongue. Call it wise, man, for it has as good a thought as most men and spills not to a gush of rubble upon the first knock. It signs the watchful traveller but has no money upon the succulent soft toes of any idle worship. Read its knowledge, for it is a book; wind, sun, rain, breath, heat, sand have etched the word across its face unturned to its destiny. What of man, woman, of stench collect, of pure hills gush, death, life, blood, unreason?
Have all gathered at its waiting paws and spilled mysteries to good
The Seven Days of Wander Page 68
