THE GUIDE

Following Campbell
A Circle of Sonnets


I.
I sing into an empty room
An invocation to the stars
The hollow dust within this tomb
Cakes my half-healed scars

Murmurs and echos whisper back
A vacant and pointless farewell
Through an opening silent and black
I seek for the voice in the shell

I have quested a verdant bliss
In the spiral of every thread
I have sought for Beatrice kiss
But they tell me the great Pan is dead

I search through this concave frontier . . .
Not here. Not here. Not here.


II.

At the borderline of the wood
I seek the hidden trail
A metaphor half understood
That leads to the wraith of The Grail

That leads toward something unfound
Though sought until its become blurred
I study the loam on the ground
For the footprints of a lost word

The wood has grown thick o’er the track
It’s surface eroded and scarred
Knowledge substantial, but slack
Virtue scorned in the mirror of the Bard

This wood is a echo of choice
In it’s depth: a myth colored voice


III.

I go in where the thicket is thick
I start down the dark trackless track
I am drawn like oil to a wick
To try and sing the voice back

To weave the words that it sings
Into meaning more lasting than chance
To give it’s bright images wings
Let it’s symbols and metaphors dance

On the Trackless track I leave old skin
I go toward the life that now waits
My search for the flowering begins
And the humanity that it creates

And the voice speaks to me from afar:
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are”


©Edwina Peterson Cross



“We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” (Joseph Campbell)


“One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.” (Joseph Campbell)


“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” (Joseph Campbell)