Summoning Poem

The burnt-up enemy of every disaster

Is found at the bottom of the bottle, 

Surrounded by sand. 

The sand is at the bottom of the glass bottle,

And still there are select grains on the mouth of the bottle. 

The bottle is Heaven-sent.

It is naturally color-less, 

And still it keeps its form and refuses to shatter. 

The bottle is one and the same,

The bottle is from a glass-blower in the heart of some distant and defunct city.

And the bottle is, of course, the size of a person’s head and just seems to be absolutely indestructible. 

The bottle is on the shore,

And the other people are on the shore looking in, looking through the glass 

At you.

Inside the bottle the size of an average person’s head. 

You seem to be accepting of the fact that you are, in fact, within the confines of the bottle,

And you are, in fact, the only one on the shore who seems to be stuck inside a glass bottle.

You are Arcadian Boy. 

You are one with the life and one with the soul.

You pull the soil from up past the grass and the roots and lift it up high, 

High, high up. 

Stretching your arm impossibly high, so that it is higher than the tree tops, 

Your impossibly long and stretchy arm with a handful of Mother Earth, 

A handful of Terra Firma. 

A handful of the World. 

And yet you envision this, of course, 

It’s not actually happening

Because you are confined within the glass bottle that is the shape of someone’s head. 

You are either envisioning this, 

Or this moment happened before you were confined in the bottle. 

One of the two, pretty boy. One of the two. 

The glass bottle is held together with the love of three women of the Nimbus,

And the shore was carved into the sea by a crew of fifteen hundred women of the Cirrus. 

You are Arcadian Boy, 

For you are one with the life and one with the soul. 

You don’t know anyone else that has lived inside a glass bottle like you have for the past fifteen years. 

So, naturally, you have been finding it increasingly difficult to relate to people. It can be difficult living in a glass bottle, a glass bottle the size of a person’s head. 

Stick your hands into the sand of the bottle, on the inside,

And realize in all sincerity that you have been accustomed to this bottle and this bottle has become accustomed to you. 

You are simpatico. 

You at first struggled to stay within the glass bottle and come to terms with the fact that you were, indeed, stuck within the confines of the glass bottle for the good and honest foreseeable future. 

At first, you thought that it was just a passing phase and that you would be out of the bottle in no time at all, 

Lickety split. 

You thought that this would be the case, but this was not the case.

You remained in that bottle for what felt like ages, for what felt like millennia.

You stayed there and you observed, You little Observer, You!

It felt like any number of years, 

Any number of minutes, 

Any number of hours, 

Any number of decades.

But all told,

You spent exactly 116 years,

3 months, 

2 days, 

5 hours, 

16 minutes,

And 27 seconds in the bottle, 

Observing. 

What brought you out of the glass bottle? 

Lightning – 

Sharp and fierce strikes of lightning that all launched from the heavens and struck the parameters of the glass in a matter of seconds

On a Thursday in October. 

You are Arcadian Boy, 

And you have escaped the confines of the bottle

And you have won this particular fight,

This particular You. 

You Arcadian Boy. 

And you will fall out of life alive, like you always have in the past, 

You observer, You. 

You will come out of Barbarity and Iniquity the way you entered the blood red  patriarchy – 

Naked, ever so sweaty, 

Head bowed in Humility and Heat raised high in Confidence. 

You will breathe free and deep, 

No longer worrying about being confined within the glass container of the bulwark bottle, 

Having the freedom to be Human – 

To be This, 

To be Here, 

To be You.

To be Activated, 

To be Unshackled 

To be proudly Alone and

Unencumbered. 

To be happily Wife-Less, 

To be happily Child-less, 

To be happily Job- less, 

To be happily Hobby-less, 

To be happily Worry-less, 

To be happily Future-less, 

To be happily Past-less, 

To be happily Present – 

Focused, present, this. 

Present. Now. 

To be a grown and hairy and naked man, covered in sweat and a thin film of gelatin and speckles of beach sand, 

To be naked here on the beach, surrounded by coconut trees and rocks and crabs and other shellfish and leagues and leagues of saltwater, 

To be alone on this island in all its entirety and to be alone as you in all of your entirety, 

And to know instinctively that it is better, more preferable, to be this way in all your entirety than to be here in all your entirety in an altogether too- small glass bottle. 

Waiting to be free and waiting to breathe properly, breathe fully. 

To stretch properly, stretch fully.

To be alone there in the night, the dark cobalt blue night with the pale full moon.

The moon that rarely seems to come along these days, 

Rarely seems to show its face these days. 

To be here in the dark cobalt blue night. 

A living legend.

You are a living legend being here – 

You are a living legend. 

You are a champion, a par for the course,  

A bon vivant,

You are the Master of your own

Fate, 

Despite what other scholars and theologians and artists might tell you, might try to convince you of. 

You are not only the Master of your own body, 

The Master of your own mind, 

The Master of your own spirit, 

But you are the Master of your own Fate, 

Arcadian Boy.

You thought at first that the lightning came randomly, completely outside yourself, 

At the exact time of 116 years, 

3 months, 

2 days, 

5 hours, 

6 minutes

And 27 seconds, 

And you believed this for a while, didn’t you?

Three days after you were freed from this glass bottle, 

And you realized that you were actually, in fact, the

Master of your own Fate – 

116 years, 

3 months, 

5 days, 

8 hours, 

12 minutes

And 36 seconds 

After you were first imprisoned in the glass bottle on the island. 

When you first arrived. 

You have awoken,

Arcadian.

You have Arisen. 

You find yourself in this space 

Where the Mysteries just seem to persist 

And sprout anew like shoots, like old devil’s horns. 

And you awake.