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Scorpion

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We see and touch the vine and vein but only find
modality, material metaphorization, and some one thing
more toward which to seek.

The mountain, river, tree and sea
are eloquent, majestic. But Scorpio o'er hot sands crawls
between still rocks. He never sees the summit,
never drinks the living current,
never rests in shadow of fruited bough,
never hears the ancient tongue of the sea.

The scorpion shares not man's quest for time and life.
He knows the shadow of both as the desert sun pours from
the sky its burning fluids. He knows the timeless movement
which the desert shares with sages, knows the sunlight hot
upon his brittle back,
and knows thereby eternal death.

Hence the scorpion's pleasure is to see
in the eye of the sun the form of wings falling,
diving from on high, from the perpetual flame itself
crashing earthward in the desert.

It is to see the swift writhing wisdom of life strike vainly at merciless
talons outstretched as the eagle evicts the serpent from the sands.
It is to watch the feathered fracas, the ascent with coiling carcass
back into the sun as blood and feather fall each its course to
the upreached arms of the Joshua Tree.

In a timeless desert death
the dance of life and time
are framed in a scorpion's eye.

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copyright circa 1970s, 2007 Elias Alias

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