THE LEGEND OF QUICKSILVER

I

Once upon a time in a timeless nowhere
in the moment everpresent with the dawning of the Day
From within the every-all, everywhere it was becoming
Just exactly the right moment for a moment to be born:
Just exactly the right moment for another fine Creation
Just exactly the right moment for a moment to Become
Its own breathless depthless moment in a moment of forever~
In a moment everpresent with the rising of a Sun.
From within the darkest brightest, from the soundless silent Word,
From the other side of nowhere dormant lay;
From within a silent echo turned without a lightless nether,
From within its own becoming came the Dawning of a Day.

From within its own Becoming a magic Universe became
a Cosmos filled with multi-plic-ity;
The One begot the Many and therein the Tale begins,
At the dawning of thre present Spirit Day.

II

And the Day called Eternal sprang forth from Itself
These Spirits that fly through the raptourous heights;
On Comets a-fire outflow endless cosmos,
In games of Creation, then, galaxies rise:
Down pathways through Space the Comets meander,
Through doorways of Time the Spirits all roam;
In world upon world of marvellous splendour
These Spirits leave spiralling celestial poems:
As they go
Flying through spaces of time on a Comet,
Tracing the hours by the clock of some Star,
Racing through canyons of infinite wonder,
Majestically soaring through words called Ideas~
Sailing through eons of words called expression,
Roaming expression through eons of Time~
Riding a Comet through random perfections
Weaving in patterns some Cosmic Design.

There through the Stars Quicksilver wandered,
Celestial wanderer through dimensions of Mind,
Feeding the Cosmos with vibrant vibration,
Riding his Comet through infinite time: he was
Riding a Comet of indwelling rhythm,
Riding a Comet to his own inner sound,
Striking the chords of the planets for music,
Accompanied by moon-choirs and resonant Stars~
Performing rhapsodic orgies of ecstatic fulfillment;
Symphonic songs with multi-world tones;
Crystal clear hymns echoed love through his being-
On a Comet called Glory, Quicksilver roamed.

And there through the Stars Quicksilver wandered,
A Light-being Spirit he wandered and roamed;
Through luminous white lights invisibly flowing,
Through radiant spectrums of crystalline jewel;
Where each Sun was a gemstone of incomparable beauty,
Each moon irradescent in transparent light;
The planets like rainbows in space were revealing,
the inherent color of eternal delight:
And the Universe danced in this glorious vision,
Majestic and awesome and sacred it glowed;
With infinite wonder and awe in his being,
On a Comet called Splendour, now, Quicksilver rode.

Slowly he rode through muludinous creations,
Scouting the infinite potential of worlds;
From among the endless domains of Existence,
Various beings within him unfurled:
In worlds made of ether, opaque and on fire,
In worlds melted light become inaudible sound,
Worlds with no time no seasons no space,
Worlds inconceivably meshed within worlds:
In the world of an atom on the world of a Star
Through beings he'd given to name,
his Comet, called Experience, begged for becoming
and through it Quicksilver became.

III

Through countless worlds Quicksilver travelled;
Past uncharted galaxies in fathomless Space.
Through timeless corridors on the verge of existence,
Seeking those worlds in which to create:
Seeking potentially fertile locations
with Spirits his friends in joint ventures to try
The infinite varieties of possible expresion,
So eager and watchful he scouted the sky:
And there long unnoticed in a nebulae distant
A young Star had brought forth in spontaneous Birth
A host of new planets in a transcosmic orgy
Spewing molten galactic fireballs of mineral...and earth...
Telescoping down on his Comet he noticed,
Conditions ideal to explore and become:
A world based on space/time and physical clothing
As Quicksilver decided on Earth to be born.

From somewhere else he had come on a journey,
From another journey he had travelled to here.
And here he would wander for a time out of timeless,
And then travel elsewhere when his travellin' was through-
For when his Earth-trip was over he had reservations,
In another dimension he had further plans,
For another expression he was laying the groundwork,
While from this excursion his energy grew.
So here he was now his Comet descending-
In oceans of green blue and yellow he's move;
In sounds of an octave he'd float warm in breathing,
With starlight and moonlight against skys colored blue.
In rhythms and movements of form he'd be dancing,
In spectrums of touching he'd touch and be touched;
In heartbeats of love he would love a beloved;
In patterns of feeling would he feel something new.

Being born that night in a chamber receiving,
A vortex of oneness in passion was pierced,
In agony blissful an alter was opened,
A temple of pleasure pierced primal through joy:
Explosions of protons, a miracle risen-
The galaxies trembled in painful delight;
Implsions of notrons, a cosmos created-
And the stars in approval all flickered all night
The Universe danced its miraculous dances,
In a fire of sweat all the atoms were thrust-
Into caverns made holy repeatedly readied,
So silent and secret this garden of lust.
As Quicksilver landed in this garden like Eden's,
Warm and secure, aye in God's very hands;
soft fluid vibrant this Temple of Nature;
In oceans of living his Comet did land:
From high aloft he had come on a journey,
through timeless caverns of space he'd arrived,
through magical doorways of transparent daydreams,
He's come to this chamber soft warm and alive.

From high aloft Quicksilver had come;
silent, in secret; nobody saw;
Transported down to this newly formed chamber
And put on a body so someone could see
Put on a body of magic and power;
Put in a brain of staggering design;
Put in his heart the Centrix of loving
And asked of the gods for a blood flavored wine.
He asked from the gods for their grace and was given;
He prayed to the gods for their wisdom and knew;
He wished from the gods for their blessing of being:
A blessing for Quicksilver alive in the womb.

IV

Here he was now a babe in the chamber,
A child in a womb soft fluid and warm;
His Spirit was soaring but embryo earthbound~
On the edge of two worlds entwined into one:
And the angels were waiting another creation,
And the devas all dncing their dances of joy:
And the Universe revelled in great celebration
As Spirit and Matter were married in Man.

Landing in time Quicksilver waited,
Intimately nourished in soft liquid love.
Patiently nurtured in miracle garments, then
He burst through the womb in an orgasmic shove:
But just in that moment, in that moment of breathing,
In that moment of light, in that second of air,
In the instant of change from one world to another
He forgt!! who he was and why he was there!
Forgot where he came from and where he was going,
Forgot that this life gift was given with grace,
Forgot he'd been blessed by the gods with a blessing
And forgot that his Comet lay idle in Space.
He forgot about journeys he'd taken tomorrow
Forgot about voyages still yet to be:
Now locked in a body this lone babe was crying~~~
Something was missing he thought to himself...

V

And the years measured Earthtime all passed rather slowly
In make believe worlds of childhood mind;
In visions unencombered of make believe fancy,
In imaginary daydreams of make believe time.
In daydreams and nightmares of childhood longings,
In make believe longings of innocent dreams.
In innocent hopes of a make believe future,
In make believe games and invisible schemes:
This child of Earth built towers of Spirit~
Even castles of sand on the beach would declare~
A sovereign estate for a king on his Comet
For a king who had wings to fly through the air.
And immersed in the innocent joy of not knowing,
Yet knowing each moment the immanent cause
He learned of the magic of forms in the formless;
He practiced and mastered the make-believe laws:
He learned how it happened, was taught how to see
And told that the real world was real and cold,
And that castles were daydreams of make-believe play dreams,
And he'd know like they did when he too was old.
And in dreams he would have in the night he's remember
The supernal beauty of a mysterious face,
who, nameless, would ride on a Comet called Magic,
But of who, in the morning, there'd be not a trace;
But who, nonetheless, was a constant companion
Till he learnt that his dreams were mere dreams in the night,
And then wistfully ignored as irrelevant illusion
With an unnoticed consequential dimming of light:
And the years measured growing were the years measured dying,
As last traces of Spirit to memory turned;
Now buried in his being were the limits of freedom,
Living forever in the cells of his brain:
As the horizons of becoming were established and frozen
In those malleable moments of childhod years,
And etched in his body were the laws of the culture,
Carved skillful with joys, branded painful with tears:
And the years measured child turned to years measured boyhood,
And the years measured boyhood yearned to years measured man;
And deliberately carved now was this statue whose living
Was skillfully etched like an artpiece unique;
So delicately formed and etched into fleshstone,
Molded and shaped was this living mystique.

VI

And miraculously a man arose into being
A man among men in a world all alone.
Unknowingly moved by a deep inner striving, though,
Merely a man in the world was become:
And the story of man has a thousand odd faces;
Each man is the story of a Spirit disguise,
Quite hidden by veils of volcanic forgetting
Each man denies truth through perceptual lies.
So inevitably this man found his crack in the concrete~
For money he sold the good part of his day;
Performing the task of a robot with eyelids,
Mechanically living the years slipped away.
Mechanically breathing each day for tomorrow,
While tomorrow tomorrow never quite came;
And the years measured humdrum all passed rather sleepy,
Like a badly scratched record all the years were the same:
In his sterile environment with doors closed and locked,
As an ideal phantom he was held in esteem,
As a perfect example of contemporary man:
Dissatisfied, deadened, dejected, depressed........

And this existential state of his being~
Separate alone with innumerable fears,
Like sedimentary rock it suffocated seeing
The circles of forgetting in degrees measured years.
And this man was a story of life in a vacume,
Of life in a vortex of conditioned response:
Robbed of the source and the spark of his being,
Merely a man in the world was become;
Who was lost in webworks of incomprehension,
Where impermanent networks of desires replaced
A once dreamed of castle of celestial wonder~
Lost and forgotton, now, with not even a trace...
And some call it boredom, some call it despair,
Some call it tired and some just don't care;
Some call it empty, some call it alone;
While some go to sleep and some turn to stone,
Some look for answers...

The Wheel of Fortune then spun him a turn;
Past the jackpot the spinning got rapidly slow.
And at last it had stopped near the wedge marked "Beware"
In the center of the shattering primordial "No"
No! No! Everywhere No!
Doors closed locked and bolted and bare.
Locked in a circle of negative mind...
And there was no way out...

The Wheel got spun...it turned in the night,
And in a silent whirl she left on the wedge "Goodbye";
And then it slowed and stopped, at the very top,
Hanging ominous were the words marked..."Who am I?":
And there was no answer....

VII

Empty and barren and beckoning Death,
He wandered around bleak streets in despair:
Watching the birds with their wings in the sky,
He wished he had wings to fly through the air.
And it all seemed unrreal now being caught in this quicksand,
Being torn racked and stretched like in story book hell
He wanted his life back, his dreams and his sleepwalk~
~~Even his soul he'd be willing to sell~~
It all seemed so wrong so sorry and twisted
Like reflections in mirrors convex or concave;
It all seemed distorted and sideways and backwards:
Was the whole point of life to end up in a grave?
Was the whole point of living to die in some quicksand,
On some faraway island, some innocuous day?
Could this be the goal which for years he'd been striving?
Could this be the treasure he'd hoped he would find?
With quicksand surrounding and binding his body,
The thoughts of a lifetime all raced past his mind:
The days he had wasted, the fruits he had tasted,
The flowers so pretty and soft like the wind~
All faded and shrunk with his body in quicksand; oh
where had he missed it, or where had he sinned?
Why had he come here he asked in a quandry,
To suffer the pains of old age and disease?
To worry the seconds the years turn regretful?
Why had he come? But nerely to die?
And it all seemed unreal, now, the streets and the sidewalks;
And the people with faces with faceless intent;
Those everyday moments filled with everyday talking,
And everywhere powerless and meaningless words~~~
What reason for living for being for dying?
What reason for breathing each day to get old?
What meaning? What motive? What idol to worship?
For what make believe kingdom as a slave was he sold?
There just must be more than this hollowed out nightmare;
It just can't be all, all this meaningless doubt~~~
And if this was but really the essential existence,
Then with all of his nausea he wanted an out:
He cried from the depths of his being for mercy,
He screamed from his gut for somemone to hear.
He offered to Death a victim defeated
By his own futile weapons of ignorance and fear.
And the Angel of Death who relieves just this suffering,
Was summoned by the cries of a suffering soul;
And His duty of love compelled Him to answer~
In the shadows of darkness, in the shivering cold:
On the verge of extinction the moment stood still,
~~~this infinte moment in a transient life~~~
With the Wheel of Death on his shoulder triumphant,
The world had been stopped for his chance to get off:
To be rid of the chaotic pain of existence,
To sleep~ ah sweet sleep~ and therein forget;
He stood on the threshhold of Death's freedom luring
And knew that this lonely decision was his.

VIII

And then in his heart there flickered a spark;
A light in the darkness of Death he perceived,
Affirming the atrophied core of his being,
A dynamic charge from nowhere conceived:
Merely a flicker and luminously weak,
But in contrast to blackness, it lit up the Night;
A Spark that ignited the fossilized center,
Exploding his plexus then piercing his sight:
Everywhere silent it filled up the Void
With inspiring sounds of a haunting refrain,
And the chorus of visions that flooded his mind
Revealed the One Truth from whence- even Death- came:
He saw in this mind-fire a magical island,
man-gods, at home, with angelic souls;
A vision of cascading layers of being~
All separate distinct, yet equally whole.
On this island of harmony in an ocean of calm,
With sky-flying angels and childhood friends,
Living in the Presence of an all-celestial Glory
With high-flying godesses and gods become men...

(And he'd been here before he remembered remarking,
He'd always been here he remarkably knew;
It seemed like the crest of a wave he was riding,
A wave going nowhere yet everywhere still;
An
infinite wave that was constantly moving,
On an infinite ocean that already moved...)

And all the island was envelloped in mist;
An invisble cloud of grace filled the prism of the air,
Allowing the islanders to dwell in perfection,
And allowing perfection to dwell everywhere.
And everywhere sounds of the laughter of children,
And everywhere laughter at the humorous twist,
And the tears for the pain were the joys of forgiveness,
And the tears became pearls that glowed in the mist.

And this vision showed landscapes of incomparable beauty,
As his mind took him gently to a cool
mountain lake
where, on observing a face in the water beneath him,
He knew in that moment the great mortal mistake:
In that moment quite depthless he saw Death as a mirror,
The reflection of life through a transparent door~
Endowing Life, through its transience, its own inner meaning:
A way for the being to become something more;
A way for the being to experience being;
A way for becoming to become in the world;
And the moments of life were a precious allotment,
For Death, in its turn, came inevitably to all.
And the pain and the suffering and the misery of blindness
Were merely the modes for the being to know
The joy and fulfillment and splendour of seeing
Were merely the modes for the being to grow-

And a joy welled within him and the spark turned to fire,
And attracted the life-giving rays of the Sun~
That melted the quicksand of Death's empty shadow,
For in that moment of being he chose to become.

IX

A world within a world within the rhythm of the Day
Within the seasons of the circle of the Self~
Within the world within the eye within the mirror of the face,
Within the twice-born fiery kernel of the Breath.

X

He chose to become a wandering being
A bird out of flock in the winddrifts of sky;
He knew in that moment his life was for finding
The wings of perception that showed how to fly.
And the vision then faded: the quicksand was gone,
and Death-ah sweet Death-was defeated by Life;
With a lingering flavor of Truth in his bloodstream,
He'd tasted the other side of chaos and strife.
And the vision now faded left corporeal traces;
A subtle etheric glow began to emanate through his heart:
Crystallized into being in the Valley of the Shadow,
this Spark-this Sun-became his light unto the dark:
Unto the dark he'd found a lightbeam;
He'd found a laser in his mind,
And its rays of holy love enveloped him.
He'd found a conscience: in the void a torch:
A conscience: through this love came forth
A star: illumined the galaxy within:
And the questions were answered, the answers to find,
With the life to be turned toward that glimmer of Truth:
as the whole point of going was really for returning
Home: to that place from whence he came~
Back to the source, to the Mother of breathing;
And on to the Sun, to the Father of Light.
This vision, now faded, was a live torch that he carried
Through the alleys and basements of the inconscient night.

And this torch was a flame was a light in the darkness
To help him to see through the landscape of day;
To help him to wake from the trance of forgetting,
This torch was a map that showed him the way:
It showed him in fragments, in lucid perceptions,
In thoughts that would come from the back of his mind,
Or in sounds or in feelings of a long dormant dragon,
As he'd battle the dragon for its treasure to find.
And everywhere he searched and looked in corners long obscure
For the roadmap for the journey going home;
For the knowledge of the movements of the forkroad of each day,
For the quintessential utterance of his own becoming Poem.
And everywhere he searched and looked but mostly looked within,
Discovering parts of his own being he'd never known;
Discovering spaces of subconscience in an existential void,
Revealing demons in the marrow of his bone.
And everywhere he searched and looked for purity in his soul
And late at night in quiet solitude he would pray:
On his knees his arms stretched skyward to the limits of the Earth,
He'd yearn for Light to come illuminate the Way;
And sometimes within sometimes without he'd find a book or man
Whose word, whose love confirmed the Real value of this Search:
Every saint became his hero, all religions speaketh Truth,
In truth the body was like an altar within a church.
And in it to make great offerings, pleasing sacrifices to the Lord,
Surrendering layer within layer of the self;
To return from whence it started, to make the circle square,
To fulfill the ancient contract of mortal birth.

And through these years measured moments measured momentary life,
Measured moments of a Presence measured Now,
Become a thread a rope, a sculpted chain; a fabric for his soul~
Become the teachings not of why but (maybe) how.

XI

So,
Flying around from color to color,
Drawn to the sounds that struck his own chord,
Choosing the notes to which he responded,
Painting his life as though it were song:
Singing he passed through each day of his opera,
Learning that time passed regardless or not;
Learning the part he played in the Drama,
But still there was soemthing he knew he forgot:
Something essential he knew he's remember,
When the time came he knew he'd recall just the word;
To free him forever from the remnants of quicksand~
a color, a voice, a song that he'd heard:
It surged up within him and nearly he knew
As he prayed to the gods for the wisdom to know;
Meandering still destination Salvation:
He learnt from the gods that the journey was slow.

An unknown appointment one day he kept
With someone he knew though never had seen;
Into his life walked this vision of Venus,
Into his life from the depth of his dream:
Into his life entered serpentine flowers,
Silvery echoes through his fabric of soul,
Compelling him devoted to embrace her forever
In the fullness of being, expansive and whole.
And the days measured heartbeats all passed in a richness
Of succulent gardens with most luscious fruit;
With the dew of the morning they'd celebrate living
With outflowered gifts from their indwelling Truth.

Nameless they shared their innermost secrets;
Nameless, their eyes spoke of life's deepest source;
Their innermost fears would vanish in humor
And nameless they shared their innermost voice:
"Two beings of Spirit! Alive! And in flesh!!
Imprisoned yet free in the ether of Earth~
Two Spirits of Fire! Sparks of Creation!
In the Great Cosmic Daydream of Death and Rebirth!!"
And wordless they'd share their innermost silence;
And wordless their lips spoke of love in the night;
And soundless the words pierced the wall of aloneness
With the warmest embrace in the softest delight:
As they dwelled in the love of their heart's inner treasure,
In a love that burned upward to the Light in their head:
Then one day he asked her her name in a love poem:
Silent...and knowing: "Quicksilver",she said.

Quicksilver!! Quicksilver!! the echo resounded
Through the canyons of Memory and the rivers of Time~
Quicksilver!! Quicksilver!! the echo it pounded
Through the innermost caverns of his innermost breath:
And his being leaped wide through the veil of forgotten,
Through the gap called remembering it leaped through the wall,
That divorced his life from the source of its living;
He leaped through the Void to the Fullness of All:
He remembered his name his Name called Quicksilver
And in it he saw his own infinite face;
He remembered his name his Name called Eternal
And he remembered his Comet lay idle in Space;
He remembered his journey of timeless fulfillment;
He'd remembered the spaceless pathways he'd roamed:
And through these Earth years of forgetting he finally remembered
And on his Comet, called Sweet Soul, Quicksilver came home.

And there through the days Quicksilver delighted,
In the Play of Creation in the light of the Truth;
He sought out the Right and the Vast and the Goodness,
He sought the elixir of Eternal Youth.
While immersed in the intoxication of Beauty,
He rejoiced in the pleasure's of Earth's sacred gifts;
And in dancing the dance of the Dance of the Cosmos~
--with his soul enraptured in fathomless bliss~
He'd fly through these days would this Spirit~Man wander,
Still learning the sound of his own soundless Name;
While crystal clear hymns echoed love through his Being
On the Comet, called Deliverance, now, Quicksilver,
Quicksilver Became...

XII

And here starts the legend of the Spirit Quicksilver,
On his Comets of Glory and Splendour he'd roam;
Through days measured timeless, through sounds measured silent,
through words measured Legend, through Quicksilver's Poem.

By Robert Hanfling
San Francisco,1975