Canticle for the Dry Wells
VIII
He afflicted thee with want, and gave thee manna for thy food,
Which neither thou nor thy fathers knew:
To shew that not in bread alone doth man live,
But in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.
Nothing elapsed in between the unwelcome arrivals of that thing,
Neither a vision nor dream, not even a dream, nor a softly
Spoken address in the whispers of wind, so the only companion
After a period lost in the desert was something of lofty
Consequence, truly a matter mysterious made for the dying
Days of a man born dead, for the creature unbidden had pierced the
Lonely expanses of dust with the only relief of abandon:
Those fell ruins and pillars the patriarchs ancient had fiercely
Built and protected, by one such well it unfurled itself from
Shadowed periphery, saying, I thought I had heard a disturbance
Here in the well of thy fathers, I wonder if water is that which
Thou hast desired, or something to better the mental perturbance
Felt in the last chance meeting we shared, as thou seemed to be wholly
Frightened by what I had shown in a smile, or rather, removing
This thin veil from my face, and the whatever had shown was enough that
Filled in my soul with a savory, trenchant appeasement, so proving
True in thy sufferings lay a delectable dish, an increasing
Rarity here in Paran, and I hope it was good to thy senses
Well as my own, as I make it a point to be generous, and then
Leaping before the unbearable sun in the day, his offenses
Fresh in a memory recent, this unambiguous spirit
Smiled again, but a slight and restrained one; that was a greater unnerving
Thing to the last time, though to be fair, it was hardly as innards-
Tossing or terrible, merely unnerving, the while deserving
Little attention as possible, that in the heat of the day, I
Draw of the well with a hand undistracted and not by a roaming
Eye, so continuing onward the task of the moment, I lowered
Down the conspicuous pail left out for the well, and by combing
Strands of the thin rope tied to the wooden veneer through my hands, I
Lowered the object, ignoring the creature throughout the procedure,
Letting the thin rope slight up until a surprising, decisive
Thud had responded, and audible laughter erupted; the creature
Awkwardly posed in the light as it spoke, No indeed, in the well is
Not a retrievable drop for a drink, and whatever intention
Might I have purposed, to give a sojourning, un-living, and frankly
Rude man what he had sought? and the creature had rapt my attention,
Causing a burst of deserved rage, What had occurred as I fingered
These ropes? said in a tone of accusing and fearful attention,
That in the desert brutality, this thing fathered a foul deed
Which had deprived well-water as far as the rope had suspension,
Which he responded, I fear for thy mind, as thou still understand not,
That in the midst of Paran, an allotment exists for bemusing
Men and bewitching the lost, as is clear for the present sojourner:
Here, in the wilderness, thou art belonging to me, an amusing
Thing for my pleasure and torment, so long as I bother to keep thee;
Here is thy home, and thy prison, until I decide, and to hasten
What I had minded for thee, I express a sincere and intrepid
Gratitude, that I desire productive and wise conversation,
Nothing extensive, a merely impersonal dialogue that I
Ponder and please to inquire of man, for my curious temper
Grows all the wearier left in a lonely enclosure, so this proves
Useful for both of us, that if I ask, and I utter extempore,
Thou can provide an insightful response, and if this is a truly
Great, satisfactory answer, I nary expect a deceitful
Thought to encroach on my mind! and I fully relent if it passes,
That for the things I am missing, the one thing that I am needful
Only befits a description of light conversation, and nothing
More, and it paused for a moment, expecting a word to be spoken
After, and when it transpired without a response, it continued,
Thou hast a penchant for bothersome silence, and should be awoken,
Lest it has yet to occur in thy mind, or if this is unclear, yet:
That in the valley of death-shade that thou hast purposed to wander,
Only the spirits survive, and whoever is deigned to be pleasant,
Rather responsive, and suited to whims, and if one is to squander
Such a relationship, even a single occasion, entails one’s
Death, and the foolish participant loses his life for a futile
Cause, his starvation attempting to soldier before a
Far more powerful thing in a spirit dominion, brutal
Sands of a dry place given to ghasts and unknowable shadows
Waiting for men; so I question again, is it pleasing to thee to
Share in a brief conversation? to which, in defense, I responded
Naught; so the terrible thing, disappointed in silence and seen to
What it suggested about the recipient, vanished again, so
Leaving the man born dead to examine the pail and its faltered
Friend, the attached dry well, or at least, it is seemingly dry, that
Raised for itself not one drop meant for a drink, so the haltered
Wood was of little utility given the current ordeal; as I sat down
Next to the crumbling bricks of the well, the concerns of the present
Time were of mighty importance: of physical needs and eternal
Spirit, within both things were a truth, for the fleeting incandescent
Soul in temptation to speak with a demon — and truly, the creature
Certainly looks and behaves in demonic chicanery — yearning
Greatly to satisfy thirst for its body, but curious minds for
Spirits discern not what the intent of the spirits are like, and in learning
What the demonic is like, he befriends the demonic, and worse yet,
Does so for neither advantage nor mere satisfaction, indulging
Spirits is only the worst of the sins of the knowledge-enamored,
Seeking a wisdom of petty significance, often divulging
More to the demon compared to what is received, and so dry the
Wells are to be, to expound or inquire to demons is fiercely
Contrary, almost as grievous as blasphemy, rhetoric, even
Idol adoring, and songs for our sufferings louder and mightier pierced the
Heavens in groans of insistence for God to deliver His people,
That for the mortified body, the sounds of the faithful despairing
Rise to the reams of the clouds as a prose for the angels to witness,
Since it indeed has the quality not of despair, but of daring
Struggles on earth to believe, for the truest despair is a noise of
Muffled direction, a quiet yet audible mention of wasted
Sadness, and always despondence arouses a silence, a noisy
Silence unlike peace, wholly unknown to the Lord, and to taste it
Troubles the Powers of Heaven with faithless complaint and a sort of
False resignation to whims of demonic occasion, and rueful
Measures are taken to end the abuse of solemnity sweet, those
Gifts of a dignity shared to the Chosen and shown to the truthful
Heirs of eternal salvation, the harvests of righteousness gained by
Diligent dreams and unbowed aspirations in blameless entreaties,
That the despairing allow for the mocking of virtue to take place
Shows in a credulous moment the forces at work, and to see these
Things with the eyes of intent pure cleans the perversity crafted
Deep in the heart and permits absolution to come by enduring
Tests of our faith, for it seems those God has allotted harsher
Sentence are cared for the most, as for Israel promptly occurring:
Never were we left wanting, the Lord as our shepherd for places
Barren and seeming forsaken were never as such we believed;
Here in a valley of certain uncertainties lay a profound sight
Looming in broad expectation, and one not fully perceived:
Under a sun-struck sky was a mostly dissimilar valley
Poorly remembered or rendered; Paran it was not, it resembled
More of the featureless wastes of Megiddo, or even the wayward
Trenchant imaginings made by the mind, if the creature assembled
Such an unusual place, it had done it by dreaming, the valley
Spread equidistant around a magnificent mountain surrounded
Fully by six wide mountains of varying colors, materials, shapes and
Heights, with the southern ascents of a red-hued glitter, around it
Stained by the clay of a mesa, and moving around in a clockwise
Manner, a mountain of amber description was standing
Over the wild expanse of the plains, and beyond it, a pearly
White peak flanked on its sides by its foot-hills, each in expanding
Waves of its own foot-hills, and encroaching the north by a mountain,
Stone in its aspect and brilliant, like a celestial lightning
Bolt, as the second in height to the mightiest central ascent, the
Mountain of gypsum as white as the snow of the winter, so fright’ning
Great in its height it had rubbed by the heavens and shone in its peaks a
Sapphire sheen so unlike all the heavens and oceans, a splendid
Luster of majesty muted, a luster intended and burning
Over the sky as a traveling star, but had fizzled and ended
Up on the face of the earth in a glowing and precious, yet softly
Dull gold-glimmer, mysterious beauty enveloped completely
Not so unlike it was swaddled in shade or the fall of the night-time
Summer withdrawals, with all of its dim denouements and discretely
Fading departures; indeed, it was like the unsettling sun, the
Sun in the morning and evening alike, and the radiance beaming
Down had the same dull light in the eyes of the demon, although not
Quite as uncanny, was more indiscernable, keeping reserved in its gleaming
Solar reflection its true composition material, deserving
That it is central among all the mountains around the enchanted
Plains, and Paran it was not, or at least, to my own recollection,
Where the miraculous enters the world as the waters decanted
During the rains of the summer, and here, if the presence of God was
Felt, it was duly unnoticed the whole time that I had ambled
Round its circumference, that for a man born dead, I had scarcely
Risen before reencountering Death, for he never has gambled,
Strongly preferring to broker his certainties, that is his well-known
Feat, but for one who was walking and having encountered the ghastly
Face of Destruction, the certainties certainly stop, and become some
Wonderful hard-won earnings as a bet, and the angel has vastly
Greater intelligence, fortitude, power, and favor of God, but
Finds the undying tradition of risk, of a game, of a gamble a mostly
Strange, unfamiliar thing, and as man, as a mortal, I only
Gamble, and never afraid to embark in ethereal, ghostly
Futures arrived in by fiat or circumstance fogged, for I know of
What is instructive in chastening days or encouraging other
Times, and if taking a risk is an always uncertainty, then I
Caution, and temper the passions, for greed is a sinister brother
Bearing resemblance to outcomes, fates, and it only appears once
After the thing has transpired, a sly and unseen infiltration,
That the undoing of Abaddon knowing of gamified structures
Not, or as well as a man, and subject to a greed of a station
Not as a sin, but of poor expertise, and as such for my purpose,
Favor has fallen upon the man born dead — in a fleeting
Way, as the dry wells readily show, and the pangs of a hungry
Body attest, so to mortify flesh has its time for repleting
Grace in the place of the pleasures of mortal desires, and yet the
Truth is a sorrowful one: if the desert unraveled resembles
Hell, if the place of retreat is the dry place that the demonic
Dwells, so the man born dead has his respite among an assembled
Fallen angelic aesthetic, the stars of defiance imprisoned
Here, immolation-ordained for the further eternities fitting
Right disobedience toward the Lord, so it must be a test of
Will to be brought to a desert of demons to savor unwitting
Temptors attempting to drag this man born dead to damnation
Since in the writhing demonic, his spirit endures as its start ought
Measure comparison, found in Gehenna already and scorched black
Once, so the trivial offerings demons can offer my heart wrought
Naught in a lonely and lurid Gehenna, a mighty and cloudless
Land for the rest of unholy ifrit in the places of dryness
Circled by mountains forgotten or never observed by a mortal
Mind, for the spirits inhabiting this place covet the highness
Looming in those great mountains surround the desert, and what a
Cause it had been for an angel to fall if it witnessed the glory
Only the Lord can emit, and to choose for itself the unwatered
Places below this emptiness, that the unknowable story
Having preceded the fall of the third has a quality somewhat
Like the affliction of men in the garden, except the decision
Man had determined was part of a scheme in the foul instigation
Purposed by one of the angels, the highest of those by excision
Cast out of heaven, and curious minds are obliged to consider
Why, for unless God’s angels are quick to unravel, pugnacious,
Otherwise easily swayed or distressed, the intention in turning
Back from the Lord has a certain uncanny assessment, ungracious
Even to mortal observance, but what is the purpose of calling
Angels ungrateful as man so defiant, so twisted by twisted
Things as to ponder a proverb for wisdom and not to develop
Love for our God, and rebellious aches to indulge I resisted
Only in part, for the earth has its tempting deliriums, still I
Wonder the warped and maligned thought that the demonic preceded,
That if the fallen angelic had sought for themselves a betrothal,
Should the prophetic Henoch be believed, or if angels conceited
Judged to be clever enough to usurp the unquestioned Creator,
God, who had sooner designed dark craft to compete with His reigning
Hand, or if this is a mystery far and beyond the imperfect
Intellect granted to human existence, and therefore profaning
Reason itself to attempt to discover a cause for the fall of
Angels, for even the fall of the first man ever possesses
Mysteries only professed in concealed ways, broken and small, that
Man can attain understanding by proxy, by parable, stresses
Such a reality more, and to speculate merely asserts
Ignorance strewn in the contents of man’s own hubris-corrupted
Soul, but the question remains to be answered: if angels wanted
Something, implied necessarily through a decision erupted
Like an unveiling of lighting by flashes in rain, so the demon
Following me has its reasons unknown for its fall from its station
Heavenly, which for the ends as pertaining to me, is it sought my
Friendly endeavor; my question is: why did it want conversation?
hunger and thirst worsen • a well run dry
Skull-Duggery offers water for conversation • the refusal
this should be Paran but it is not • alabaster mountains