31 Days: At most, flowers
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronia/tag/31days)
Mmm, not finished either. ^^;
I can offer nothing
This nothing's everlasting
I could be Shiva lying
Beneath ferocious darkness
My heart's devoured
Cover me with flowers
Let me see the face
Of all enduring grace
Let me take a crack at
All that matters
And in the weightless hours
Cover me with flowers
--David Sylvian, "Cover Me With Flowers"
***
I.
He woke to the void. There was no up, no down; he could not tell if he still breathed. Around him darkness heaved and throbbed like the belly of a great beast. He was deaf and blind, with no tongue with which to give voice. He could not scream.
Desperately he reached out-
He floated in a horizonless space, lit as if by unseen fire. The space was made of windows, or perhaps the windows hung in space, possessed of length and width but not depth. Many opened only onto darkness; as many more showed clouds scuddering across a wavering, watery sky. Others led to people, scenes, empty rooms. Facet upon facet, reflection upon reflection.
He knew what they were.
He knew, too, who he was.
He whispered a name and reached out again, searching.
II.
Yuzuru had a datura bush in his backyard. It had leaves that were broad and heart-shaped, vegetable-like, not glossy. The flowers were white. Each oval bud was the length of his hand from wrist to fingertip, the petals all of one piece, wound around on itself like twisted silk rope. When ready it would unfurl at a leisurely pace over the course of a single day, giving off a sweet scent as dusk descended. Rain was fatal to the process.
"It's poisonous," Takaya said. "I knew a guy who ate some of the seeds once."
He was fifteen and a month. He sat with his back against the door jamb, one leg dangling off the edge of the veranda. Within the confines of Yuzuru's house he used to hold himself as if about to take flight at any moment, and that tension had not completely dissipated. He almost never spoke of acquaintances unfamiliar to Yuzuru, or of the past.
"He heard they give you good dreams. Heard it was better than meth. Fucking idiot."
"What happened to him?"
"They found him standing in the street in the middle of the night, butt naked and screaming. Never been right in the head since. It was stronger than meth all right."
Yuzuru ran a finger along the blossom from peduncle to lip. The story did not frighten or sadden him. It engendered an odd sense of wonder.
"How strange," he said. "It smells so sweet it calms the heart."
III.
Memory crowded on him. It was like standing on the roof of a glass tower, each pane a darkened room; or in an infinite hall of blank portraits. Each light illuminated only itself, as if the moment were enclosed by walls, or - in the manner of a floating stage - by watchful obscurity.
In one scene Irobe was saying, "These, then, are the four celestials: mandaraka, the white flower. Mahamandaraka, the great white flower. Manjushaka, the red flower. Mahamanjushaka, the great red flower. Too there are the sacred loti: padma, pure lotus of noon. Utpala, blue lotus of evening..."
In the memory he sat in a position of meditation, silently listening. He could not, now, recollect where the room was, but there was the sense of a wide space. The flames of candles flickered somewhere immediately outside of his range of vision, casting one long dancing shadow upon another. Fragrant smoke rose in thin blue coils from a brazier that stood between him and Irobe, blurring the air. The wall behind Irobe's head was covered in a mural of great and complex scale, extending upward and to both sides, its edges lost in shadow. It was a painted mandala representing the Diamond World. In the wavering illumination the figures of bosatsu and nyorai emerged from penumbra as living things might, blue and ochre-yellow limbs on the very verge of flowing from one mudra to another. He felt their eyes on him, glittering; endlessly patient.
In the memory he remembered white light rising through his body, white light that soaked through every pore and fibre, as water rises in the stem of a cut flower.
IV.
When the Buddha had finished preaching this Sutra, he sat with his legs crossed in lotus position and entered into the samadhi of the place of immeasurable meanings, his body and mind never moving. And as soon as the Lord had entered upon his meditation, there fell a great rain of divine flowers covering the Lord and the four classes of hearers, while the whole Buddha field shook in six ways: it moved, removed, trembled, trembled from one end to the other, tossed, tossed along.
Then did those who were assembled and sitting together in that congregation, monks, nuns, male and female lay devotees, gods, Nagas, goblins, Gandharvas, demons, Garudas, Kinnaras, great serpents, men, and beings not human, as well as governors of a region, rulers of armies and rulers of four continents, all of them with their followers, gaze on the Lord in astonishment, in amazement, in ecstasy.
V.
"Under no circumstances must these roots be employed together as tincture," said Haruie. "The formula is six parts mandarake to two parts aconite, two parts Chinese angelica, two parts Japanese angelica, and two parts senkyuu, ground into powder and boiled in water. To be strained well until no sediment remains, and the clear liquid drunk while it is still warm. After two to four hours the patient will fall into a dreamless sleep and feel no pain, even when the knife enters his body."
She refolded the cloth packets, then placed her hands in her lap. For a long time she had been reluctant or unable to speak of such knowledge as she'd acquired in her absence.
"The flower spoken of in the sutras," Naoe said. "Small wonder that it soothes pain. And what if you ingest it raw? Would it satisfy all earthly desire as well?"
"You would go mad," she said sharply, looking at him. "And then you would die. It is a poison."
VI.
Perhaps all celestial flowers are harbingers of death.
***
Mmm, not finished either. ^^;
I can offer nothing
This nothing's everlasting
I could be Shiva lying
Beneath ferocious darkness
My heart's devoured
Cover me with flowers
Let me see the face
Of all enduring grace
Let me take a crack at
All that matters
And in the weightless hours
Cover me with flowers
--David Sylvian, "Cover Me With Flowers"
***
I.
He woke to the void. There was no up, no down; he could not tell if he still breathed. Around him darkness heaved and throbbed like the belly of a great beast. He was deaf and blind, with no tongue with which to give voice. He could not scream.
Desperately he reached out-
He floated in a horizonless space, lit as if by unseen fire. The space was made of windows, or perhaps the windows hung in space, possessed of length and width but not depth. Many opened only onto darkness; as many more showed clouds scuddering across a wavering, watery sky. Others led to people, scenes, empty rooms. Facet upon facet, reflection upon reflection.
He knew what they were.
He knew, too, who he was.
He whispered a name and reached out again, searching.
II.
Yuzuru had a datura bush in his backyard. It had leaves that were broad and heart-shaped, vegetable-like, not glossy. The flowers were white. Each oval bud was the length of his hand from wrist to fingertip, the petals all of one piece, wound around on itself like twisted silk rope. When ready it would unfurl at a leisurely pace over the course of a single day, giving off a sweet scent as dusk descended. Rain was fatal to the process.
"It's poisonous," Takaya said. "I knew a guy who ate some of the seeds once."
He was fifteen and a month. He sat with his back against the door jamb, one leg dangling off the edge of the veranda. Within the confines of Yuzuru's house he used to hold himself as if about to take flight at any moment, and that tension had not completely dissipated. He almost never spoke of acquaintances unfamiliar to Yuzuru, or of the past.
"He heard they give you good dreams. Heard it was better than meth. Fucking idiot."
"What happened to him?"
"They found him standing in the street in the middle of the night, butt naked and screaming. Never been right in the head since. It was stronger than meth all right."
Yuzuru ran a finger along the blossom from peduncle to lip. The story did not frighten or sadden him. It engendered an odd sense of wonder.
"How strange," he said. "It smells so sweet it calms the heart."
III.
Memory crowded on him. It was like standing on the roof of a glass tower, each pane a darkened room; or in an infinite hall of blank portraits. Each light illuminated only itself, as if the moment were enclosed by walls, or - in the manner of a floating stage - by watchful obscurity.
In one scene Irobe was saying, "These, then, are the four celestials: mandaraka, the white flower. Mahamandaraka, the great white flower. Manjushaka, the red flower. Mahamanjushaka, the great red flower. Too there are the sacred loti: padma, pure lotus of noon. Utpala, blue lotus of evening..."
In the memory he sat in a position of meditation, silently listening. He could not, now, recollect where the room was, but there was the sense of a wide space. The flames of candles flickered somewhere immediately outside of his range of vision, casting one long dancing shadow upon another. Fragrant smoke rose in thin blue coils from a brazier that stood between him and Irobe, blurring the air. The wall behind Irobe's head was covered in a mural of great and complex scale, extending upward and to both sides, its edges lost in shadow. It was a painted mandala representing the Diamond World. In the wavering illumination the figures of bosatsu and nyorai emerged from penumbra as living things might, blue and ochre-yellow limbs on the very verge of flowing from one mudra to another. He felt their eyes on him, glittering; endlessly patient.
In the memory he remembered white light rising through his body, white light that soaked through every pore and fibre, as water rises in the stem of a cut flower.
IV.
When the Buddha had finished preaching this Sutra, he sat with his legs crossed in lotus position and entered into the samadhi of the place of immeasurable meanings, his body and mind never moving. And as soon as the Lord had entered upon his meditation, there fell a great rain of divine flowers covering the Lord and the four classes of hearers, while the whole Buddha field shook in six ways: it moved, removed, trembled, trembled from one end to the other, tossed, tossed along.
Then did those who were assembled and sitting together in that congregation, monks, nuns, male and female lay devotees, gods, Nagas, goblins, Gandharvas, demons, Garudas, Kinnaras, great serpents, men, and beings not human, as well as governors of a region, rulers of armies and rulers of four continents, all of them with their followers, gaze on the Lord in astonishment, in amazement, in ecstasy.
V.
"Under no circumstances must these roots be employed together as tincture," said Haruie. "The formula is six parts mandarake to two parts aconite, two parts Chinese angelica, two parts Japanese angelica, and two parts senkyuu, ground into powder and boiled in water. To be strained well until no sediment remains, and the clear liquid drunk while it is still warm. After two to four hours the patient will fall into a dreamless sleep and feel no pain, even when the knife enters his body."
She refolded the cloth packets, then placed her hands in her lap. For a long time she had been reluctant or unable to speak of such knowledge as she'd acquired in her absence.
"The flower spoken of in the sutras," Naoe said. "Small wonder that it soothes pain. And what if you ingest it raw? Would it satisfy all earthly desire as well?"
"You would go mad," she said sharply, looking at him. "And then you would die. It is a poison."
VI.
Perhaps all celestial flowers are harbingers of death.
***