Solipsa

I.

Echo, voice, oh carry through this void whose
edge I desperate grasp; fly fast and far
before my fingers lose their grip and I
should fall out into nothing and be nought;
rebound and bring me back myself redoubled:
A hundred voices chorused in a paean,
joining in praise reverberant, granting strength
to vault me from this harrowing precipice,
back towards the center and to safety, free
my way to make then, never more to wander
out among these jagged limns where all does
sudden cease, a drop from darkness into
darkness darker, emptier still, resounding
silence thick as stone, a flowing syrup
that seeps between the sinews, coils itself
about the bones and freezes up their marrow.
To save me from this inverse maw whose airs,
whose vapours supplant the warmer blood in me,
weaken my will and ever weigh at me,
I'll sing me to myself, my circumstance
describe, declare with virile words, phrases
able to reach, to puncture through into
some idle, waiting mind, some fertile field
unsewn, thereon to strew their seeds, impregn
with burgeoning thoughts, to bloom and bear forth seeds
that scatter on the winds and propagate
a thousand other fields in divers climes
in disparate districts, scattered as these seeds
across most high Phenomi's wide demesne,
Phenomelä whose borders want no fence,
no foss, and need no warders on patrol,
being thus bounded by the endless chasm.
O'er fens and brakes, all desert spaces fly
my dimming voice, and sing these into life.
Make populous the barren lands and build,
oh catena of words, yourselves out of
yourselves, build up inside the breasts
to spring from every tongue into the air
and swirling like some wanton wraith,­-though yet
not carefree, of a dreadful aim possessed,
purposed to succor me in my foolish plight
where I peregrinating lost my way
and stumbled almost o'er the edge of all--
do you my will: I thus entrust, beseech,
command you, do as circumstance prescribes,
raise up whole races like to me, whole realms,
vast emperies gilt in artifice, glutted
in lavish splendor if these you beseem
propitious to increase, to promulgate,
but do not else the mean, the lowly way
disdain. To spread along the trammelled ground
like creeping vines or stretch toward the heavens
like towering pines atop far hills:
Either may fit our pressing end, to free
and to Phenomelä its Regent Queen
return, its sole inhabitant besides,
and spin me subjects, retinues of me
o'er which my sceptre sovereign might rule.
I long to step back from this edge, regain
my footing in the realms of Phenomi.

II.

Before proceeding, this I must describe:
As fruit of seeds planted in sundry climes
take on the aspect of the place so they
may better serve as supp those dwelling there,
thus this song's myriad syllables and words,
abundant phrases, bearing fruit will match
the temper of the region, of the time,
so in a thousand forms, one for each tract,
for every county of Phenomelä
phrases and syllables will bloom distinct,
images fitting to the field its soil,
the song transmute itself to fit the vessel
and from the vessel be distilled like spirits
aged in the local style, ripe to share
amongst the kindred of that place. So as
the song ages, more congruous in tune
and harmony to local trills it will
become, discordant though it was in those
first unripe sips before it could ferment.
As sunlight through a coloured pane assumes
its shade upon the sanctum's plastered walls,
alights the curling palls of censer smoke,
so shall these words take form behind the eyes,
as sense from unsense blossoming in the gloom.
Now let me speed my song, propel my tale
at last, echo my words unto the void.
I launched out from a spot I'd deemed a centre
abaft a coracle of woven thoughts,
cast out with oars upon dark waters still
as stillness that I'd found inside of me.
From that sure spot, that certain, central shore
I rowed my craft in longing and in search
of waters more swift and novel airs more brisk,
to rouse me from my endless languidness,
my torpid listlessness and slumbering.
So little and ill do I recall of aught
before my setting out; I scarce recall
the spinning, the careful weaving of my thoughts,
persisting with deft fingers o'er those stiff,
those sluggish thoughts that seldom deigned to stir
until at last the work stood sculpted on
the shore, all of a piece, a congeries
of dream and idle fancy calcified
into the craft that bore me on my way
through distances vast, through calms and savage storms.
Less light then air, though lighter than the dusk
of water over which I rowed in calms
and later sailed in gusting winds that craft
has proved, whose gunwales were my dreams, whose keel
was my desire, whose every beam was born
of me, from bow to stern, from port to star,
from hull up to the mast, even the sail
sewn from my ken, my old imaginings,
the sparks of light that in awareness flicker
and currents form coursing all of their own,
though parallel to those surrounding waters.
In dark I rowed, in dimness and in murk
I raised the sail and trimmed it constantly
in those capricious winds, those swirling airs
that sped me where they would, them trusting since
I had no certain course nor sure design
except to heel before the wind, to glide
o'er waters obsidian and find myself
other and else than I had hereto been.

III.

After some unknown span of time a light,
a faint star far ahead illumed the dusk
I had not prior known burdened the air.
A light it was, though then I knew it not
and lay confused and awed inside my skiff
as I drew nearer and it brighter burned
and flickered inside my eyes, my starlit gaze.
It grew until it compassed sky and waves;
until my boat, myself, swiftly enveloped
and frozen still I stood, girdled in warmth,
suffusing warmth whose touch I had not dreamt
and blazing light no eyes ever beheld.
The winds died off without that lambent sphere,
their strength repelled, inside the center of
that place leaving me calmed and raimented 
in cloths of brazen air, glistering garb
the like of something in myself now heard
anew, ringing, resounding with the air
in timbre sweet, in mellifluous tones.
Beyond the sphere where never light was known
nor shadows e'er had grown was now become
adumbrated and dim, and saddened me.
Loth then I was to leave this radiant space,
cast out again upon adumbral waters,
surrender trust to the capricious winds
wanting for star, compass, or other light
to seek, bound ever to peregrinate
over the featureless water's glossy sheen.
My craft whose woven thoughts were aureate gilt,
whose every beam lustred and from whose mast
the sail draped down in thin--spun argent folds,
my wondrous craft would become dim as those
surrounding watery wastes, so I surmised.
I looked about. I could not here remain.
With new resolve from nowhere sprung, I then
purposed to leave and yet not leave the light,
to means devise to bear the light with me
wither I went. Myself resolved, the rest
could not but follow. I reached out from my craft
and drew it, fragile as a flowerbud,
up off the water's sheen into my hands.
Its surface shone and from intricate curls
droplets of water ran like dew o'er petals.
A spot was ready made within the bow
and there I rested it, secure from harm,
fixed so to blazon forth and light my course.
Now, finally, the world would not be dim.
I'd sat in emptiness, floated in void
for ages long. I'd lost and senseless lain 
while gathering up my strength and all my words
then wove them into wings to bear myself
wither I would upon the limpid airs
of that desert and formless place.
Ere long I'd sailed a pinprick broke the void
and towards it's novel gleam I'd steered.  It was
the first one, mostly vacant of those rich
and various marvels wherewith many isles
of light later were lavishly embued.
This one, this weightless, purely gleaming thing
I set upon my brow, I wore it as
a stone set in a diadem, delighting
in the rays it cast before me through the dusk.
Even this light I've lost. But like my wings,
my coracle, it served me faithfully.

IV.

The first reverberations of my song
returning back I think to now make out
though still far off and faint, piteously faint.
They stir in me new thoughts and words, pictures
refleshed, remembered from my peregrines
through endless realms of light, through storms of sound,
through void, through heat, through fragrance blossoming
and hues cascading, shimmering in falls
in soaring seas, in thunderous arcs that burn
the gaze, bursting from pits of syrupy night,
demesnes of pure sensation where there was
no need to go in flesh, only to drift
as floating self and soak its substance up.
These worlds, these regions of Phenomelä
I next shall sing, and singing honor them.