Dream of the Longest Night To Egypt
Prose Poem
By Greg Patrick
“All men dream: but not
equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds
wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it
possible.” – T.E. Lawrence of Arabia
The ensnared falcon tried to rise
against the tether. Wings beating futilely and shrill cries
of protest. For what living thing born
free can suffer to be caged? With keen far-sighted
gaze a rare albino falcon languishes in
the confines of a Pharaoh’s cage when its birthright
of the skies beckon like its own shrill
song in echo. Every fibre of its being yearns for the
sun-lit skies to take wing, its folded
pent wings restlessly embracing captivity, outgrown
like a cocoon, its shell cannot withhold
change. Wings that cannot uplift smite the cage and
heart that cannot bend, feathers falling
like a son god’s tears. The falconer dares not voice
the council to liberate the untamed thing.
He knows the truly free die in captivity .How
much to ransom freedom? The price of
blood, the sacrifice for defiance?
When eve has fallen, and none bears vigil the
falconer opens the cage like a forbidden box. He
croons to the raptor softly in his banned
native tongue to calm it. It climbs the length of his arm
crossways and he bears the falcon on his
forearm and severs the tether like an umbilical
chord with the earthbound. Their bond now
is of the gods and skies. The gaze and bejewelled
eyes behold the heights, their depths
reflect the heights. Like a nomad pavilion flame in a desert
lion’s eyes the stars smoulder. He strides
among the sacred flames to the threshold of the throne
room. The promise of the skies awaits. The
eyes of the falcon reflect and microcosm the stars till
they shine of their own fires.
Like an Alexandrian lighthouse beam their
allure seem as if lights guiding nomad and mariner
homeward. Not drawn to a mirage but a
substance and depth few could envision for they saw
with heart as well as mind. The braziers
were over-turned and from the pyre the falcon soared
aloft like a phoenix of Scheherazadian lore, like the soul of a slain
warrior rising from his
immolation. Like a portal of fire the
threshold seems lit.
The writhing flames illuminate the
hieroglyphs the timeless words of wisdom
and dreams. The paintings of the gods lit
in eerie resplendence. The falcon’s fire-lit gaze delves
into his own, searchingly then turns to
the heights. The falcon’s wings flex like a warrior before
battle, head poised and tensed before its wings
flutter like the desert wind over the sands in the
sultry night. Dreams are not a reflection
of who we are but who our heart knows us to be. A
mirror that does not lie.
He saw himself mirrored in the falcon’s
gaze as if seeing himself for the first time as if
reflected in a moon-lit oasis. Falcon and
man look to the heights with the same kindred eyes. The
gaze of visionary and far-seer. He
releases the falcon like an offering to the skies and to the gods
bearing his heart aloft. A contented sigh
like a nomad from an oasis. “Go then. Seek the stars.”
he bade. Its shrill cry like a battle cry
wings embracing the heights like lost friends reunited.
Hope like fledglings yet unborn in aeries
cry out in reply. Once Pharaoh’s prize falcon now
free. He closes his eyes savouring the
resonance of its cry. Like a heraldry rallying the heart
for battles to come.
Just as the falcon does not waver long
tensing upon the precipice before it steps forth to the
void and to soar his counterpart did not
hesitate on his behalf. As it soared from an aerial
perspective the falcon beheld almost
comically the Pharoah’s face growing dimunitised as it rose
free, its captor reduced like the pyramids
and royal statues to merely the size of chess pieces on a
board. Like the eyes of a god looking down
on mortals. The Pharaoh’s up-lifted hands like those
of a beggar, empty. Archers’ arrows do not
find their mark. They rise after it threatening to fell it
in mid-flight but then fall back as it
soars higher to zenith.
Dream differed reached at last. The
falcon mirrored by the Nile, gliding as effortlessly
as a corsair vessel over placid seas
into the red sunset, wind beneath wings it is silhouetted
against the sun like an emblazonment
against a shield of flame. Like a cowering prey in the
shadow of a hovering raptor the Pharaoh
looks up eyes blinded by the sun. The falcon shrills,
reveling in its flight and element. It
breaks from its circle and seeks the greater heights. His
liberator watches its silhouette fade like
a castaway looking at a ship’s wake and diminishing sail
over the horizon as if dissolving into the
very sun like a vision, then turns to their armed
approach.
Blood drawn by talons on the forearm
betrays but does not lie. The falconer’s eyes dare the
blade. It is nothing for his heart has
known freedom and what it is to truly fly. He stands as tall
before them as proud as the Pharaoh. A
crown of gold no more makes a true lord of Egypt than a
cage truly unmakes the free. The final
heresy. Blades are drawn. He hears the falcon’s distant cry
like the cry of the bereaved land itself and
closes his eyes. One eve the guardsmen preventing
sacred offerings to a “traitor’s grave” to
free a soul to the gods.
They saw only moonbeams falling as the
falcon god visited his lone sarcophagus like a
chrysalis and bade him shed the cage for
the stars await the free. As you freed me friend. So
I free you and no cage comes between
us again.
From the eternal flame of the desert
stars, a falcon cries out to its own.
The ghost whispers its wings as they
caress the sky sigh of the ageless. Beckoning
dreams differed restively pushed to the
back of the mind are like the plaintive voice at
during a long voyage asking, “are not we
within sight?”
It is the voice of the heart’s craving
like the cries from an aerie calling out to its listener
urging it to soar with a far-seeing gaze
in its search and to not return empty-handed.
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