IN SEARCH OF LIGHT!...

The Traveler
by "OBSIDIAN!!!" [Excerp from "Zen is Now" c. 1990]



Begin:

This lonely path I trod
This body bent over steel rod
And mesh
Fashioned into a man of flesh
Scarred by the stylus of time
The unyielding sound of the
Sculpture’s hammer chiseling
My will and my mind

Cast into the light of the furnace
All too soon
The dross of reasoning’s brushed aside
No time to cry for lo!
I AM!
Born to pass by noon
The sun’s so high it’s blinding
My eyes! I bow before its
Wrath and I say not, ‘I AM
What I AM’ but that I have
No other choice but to descend
This path

Rain falls but yet
I AM still cold
Fires descend upon a world
So old simmering me like coals
From the flame that I once was
A being of light!
Wrapped tight
In the tattered garment of a man

Before me stretches forth the land
The traveler’s bag’s within my
Hand and I
I turn my back toward the west
With resolve heavy within my breast
To let my journey
Begin…