Vigil No.3
Equinox day, autumn, September 22, 2024 11:14 a.m.
((((Back room of the house, all animals have gone, save Bear and Possum, Possum slumbers in the den and Bear stands silently in front of the three windows.)))
BEAR: “See here, out of these three great windows of the house of thought, go each animal, great and small, named and not, down into the Suns burrow. As the breeze lilts between fur and splays whiskers and cloth, each animal proceeds down, with their lanterns in paw. If I look out this window here, it is as a great festival parade, full of light and wonder and laughter. If I look out this window in the middle, it is more plain, some wear the countenance of joy and excitement, while others the mask of worry hangs heavily on downturned face. Finally if I gaze through the window on the end, the scene is dark as a funerary procession, all lights low and every step shaking and full of despair and worry and pain.”
WOLF: (standing behind bear, reflected in the window but silent, his face unable to be looked upon)
Bear addressing Wolf: “Your brother Fox has placed these windows here in great mercy, but what strange mercy perception is. Fox grants us the sight of paths. All Paths lead out of the mouth of your brother Coyote and end down your cavernous throat. What are we to do but spend a little time between those mouths and watch ourselves move along the path in glimpses shown in the mirror Fox hold? The seasons and all living things are born of the laughter of Coyote, those things are shown and reflected to each by the mirror Fox holds, that we may discover them by our own understanding for what is shown in foxes mirror is illuminated only by the light we hold up to it….. And then come thee, wolf, to collect all lights under your cold tongue as every possible thing ceaselessly carries itself in procession to pass through your fangs. You who are neither hungry nor satisfied.”
Here Bear began coughing, a rasping deep tearing cough, that rattled back into him in a snarling wheeze as he gasped. To one not watching, it would be as the sounds of snarls and roars and growls. As he slowly regained his breath he looked to his candle in its little green glass, now low and faint, with not much wax left…he stood bunched with his fanged jaws hung open and his breathing labored, as blood then trickled from the line center his tongue, out over his down curled lip to Pitter patter on the window sill in deep red spots. His eyes, wild and wide and green and bright as wild grass looked quickly from the candle to the window again, where Wolfs reflection still stood behind him, he fought to look beyond him, to the little animals hurrying down into their burrow and once his eyes adjusted and he could see the smiling and laughing, he sighed, and closed his muzzle. Wiping the blood up with a well cared for kerchief he produced from his vest pocket, he tidied himself and stood straight and silent again. His eyes closed. And there he stood for a time. When he opened his eyes again to look out the great middle window, they had become brown and golden, the color of amber tea and cinnamon.
SIGH No.3
Oh fears, flee thee before the lights we have been given. Oh pain, be put at bay by the burrows prepared for us.
May the sweet lessons, joy and kinship born of tender spring and fondest summer be reaped and stored here with us as we descend.
May this burrow be where the sun sleeps, where we gather in love and where all hard fought things and efforts be born as sustenance and comfort in the coming dark and cold.
Selah for Bear:
Pain and fear and the endings will come. there is no path that wolf does not walk, but along side him walk his brothers, and in your tears and aching and worry, may the laughter of coyote lift your thin limbs when you cannot, may the mirror of fox reflect those whom you have loved and who have loved thee and may you find the empty house with ease, for its masters finality is as just and earned as it was for all things in eternity that came before thee and that shall come after.
