Author: Santiago José
To be illustrated soon
Date: 2025
Note: This illustrated poem serves as supplementary content for the music EP "The Earth Wall" by Central Flock Caribou.
Poet: O Muses who speak all dialects, why did you whisper a Spanish-tongued poet with verses in Iambic Pentameter? English is not my guise!
Muses: You wouldn't question if you knew how many Italians, Frenchmen, German, or even English and Spanish, to name a few, have heard us sing in tongues not theirs.
Poet: Then sing to me in my own dialect!
Muses: As of today, English is the very etiquette by which one may disarm the Empire.
Poet: Do you speak of revolt?
Muses: To turn the instrument against itself!
The poem proposes the idea of Man as God, or rather, as the vehicle through which God inhabits the world in order to experience His own creation. It explores the concept of the "Divine Descent" and the struggle toward "Reascension". Importantly, the word "Reascension" implies the "returning" of God —or the prodigal son— to the paradise from whence He came from. For humanity, all paradises are experienced as lost.
The argument is that Man conceives God as a distant entity, but in reality, God is closer than Man's own jugular. Man is a pilgrim on Earth, which also implies that he is in transition from one place to another. This gives the idea that God enters the world through a door and exits through another. However, there are, in fact, three doors: Birth, Death and Bliss. The first two are inseparable, as one inevitably leads to the other, while the third represents a conscious choice made during one's lifetime.
To reascend back to Heaven, Man must be free of burdens. The Shadow-King is but Man's own "personality", the accumulation of all burdens, which keeps him bound to the cycle of Birth and Death. Therefore, one must first slay the personality to attain Bliss. The Earth Wall is the human body, a "cave", a "prison", or in this instance a "mountain", in which God is trapped. Just as there is a geography for the physical world, there is also a geography for the inner world (and therefore symbolic). The journey of Knowledge, depicted in the poem as the act of "following" the sunlight, is the attempt to remember what the soul already knows, which also alludes to "Solum Omnium Lumen". Ultimately, this pilgrimage leads back to paradise.
In clouds aloft, among the stars –where Gods
(Now Men) once flew above–, a voice so sweet,
Beyond the stellar host exclaimed aloud:
"Let there be light! A world so bright, that we
Could find a place to dream, both day and night;
In fleshy bones, a dungeon dark, so fair
And virgin! Upward King, and downward Beast,
We shall go deep in tempest loud, to Earth,
So called Pandora's box unheard, and watch
Celestial sphinx' engulfed on orient gold
Become human, while angels sing afar."
All souls who venture into this domain
Descend through seven rings of photons bright,
Eleven realms, eleven spheres and nine
Dimensions vast, to seek a gate called Birth
(That which is known as "womb" for humankind),
And shape their shapeless essence to the form
Of newborn flesh. The next doorway is Death,
An empty seal of vanished night so grand,
That keeps divine beings attached to Earth.
'Tis known that worlds are tied to stars above,
And stars to greater bodies, far remote;
So why can't souls be tied to sentiments,
Ideas, emotions, thoughts, and dreams profound?
Would Birth exist, if Death were not? For both
Are one –as flesh to blood, as light to flame–,
And mark the Karmic Cycle's turn, a Wheel
That spins around the sun throughout the void…
O Earth! You are the stony Wheel that loops
Through space and time; a godly prison green,
With ocean streams so great on all sides round,
A forest sweet, Hesper'n dream unsung,
Where angels fall like raindrops from your clouds;
A dungeon dark, where sulphur's fused with gold
And doric temples worship pagan Gods.
Blasphémous treasures hidden deep inside,
O Earth, what riches in your mouth reside?
A fiery dragon guards your diamonds pure,
His name is Ego, yellow-eyed serpént
That shelters golden-nuggets, gems and coins
As neurons vast. The brain, a castle wrecked…
And yet a door remains to be revealed,
The third, the last (within the flesh it lies),
Obscured by cells, by genes, by blood, by skin,
Above the spine, below the cranium's crust,
The central lobe, a place of wisdom keen,
Adorned in white and rose, so bright a veil,
This gate is Bliss, so called by seraphim...
O Muses, sing your songs and dance once more,
Before your mother, Mem'ry, dwarfs your grace
Around the mind and make the poet deaf!
Perform your arts, O Muses, sing above
His head and tell the story of th' Earth Wall!
In Heav'n, where flocks of angels still reside,
The human shape is also known as stardust.
From groins to brain, the pow'r divine must climb
And reach the third and final state, O Bliss,
The force of Kúndalíni, wisdom's way,
To tránscend Birth and Death, and rise aloft,
Like Mithra, Bacchus, Dante, Faust and Christ.
'Tis true that Man and mountains share a bond
Through "heights" alluded to in lines above.
Behold the spine: a mountain ridge so tall!
Behold the skull: a snowy peak so white!
Behold the brain: a hidden cave so deep!
Behold the self: a Shadow-King so ev'l!
Behold the truth: a silver gate so bright!
No wonder ancient folk believed that heights
Were sacred places, such as peaks, or clouds,
And therefore symb'lize Heav'n, the throne of God…
As Merc'ry rises through the fever stick,
So does the inner light ascend the body,
'Tis known as Hermes, wingèd guide of Man!
Not only Greeks thought mountains housed the gods,
But Hindus, Aztecs, Romans, Norse as well.
O mount Parnassus, house of Delphi's voice!
Is Hell beneath, and Heaven high above?
Mount Tabor, point where Christ ascended high,
Did Moses speak with God on Sinai's peak?
Tall Kailash, source for Hindu lore divine,
Does Shiva sleep within your snowy crust?
One last remark! The Shadow-King is near!
Confess, O Lord! Confess… forgive, forget,
Recall your faults…! Was Mithra born from stone?
Another rock, another stone so grey!
There's nothing left to eat but rotten fish!
The Muses sing aloud! Their voices rise
Through Sardis, Smyrna, Pergamúm, and far
Beyond Ephesus, Asia, Greece and Spain.
A star announces Proserpine's return,
Bright Spica shines in Virgo's bluish void,
Thus speak the nine, among the caves and pines:
"Recall, O Sky! How Sun and Rain alike
Invoke the name of Mithra, lord of light!
Apollo now returns from winter's dawn
With or'cles new, while Bacchus sleeps tonight!
The rain shall fall to cleanse all sins before
Almighty Pluto claims his bride's return!"
Is liquid rain what Muses nine request?
O Sin and Fate! Is water all they seek?
Hark, Father Thor! Grand host of suns and moons,
Shall Heav'n descend when voices call anew?
When Heav'n lets loose, ten thousand riders storm
The lands like thunderbolts across the sky.
For gentle maids alone they dare descend,
To steal them hence unto the Heavens' crest.
O long-lost brides, who from their grooms did part!
Your cousins weep in vain for your return.
O long-lost brides, who from their grooms did part!
Will you come down with heroes in your wombs?
O long-lost brides, who from their grooms did part!
Are you not heartsick for your bridal beds?
A generation new of heroes shall
Descend to Earth, and slay all hornèd beasts
Disguised as Joy and Love. For bringing forth
The rain must mean to cleanse the world of vice,
To seek the Sun once more, to smite the Fiend,
To drive the Shadow-King along the void,
For Shadows must return from worlds abroad...
Alas, so tells the myth of The Earth Wall!