Sunday, February 1, 2009

ALICE HICKEY : THE WRITTEN VERSION OF THE WITNESSES LOG MYTH




For those interested
in the written version of the myth,




It is printed in its entirety below.







The Witnesses Log


I

In the beginning,
there was nothing.

Only the sound

of darkness.

And us.

We were like moss
clinging to the mountainside.

We were waiting
to be
remembered.

We were
waiting

for the sun.






II

When the Listeners came,
we changed.

We became Witnesses.

We heard the Listeners
entering the darkness
in the valley
far beneath us.


We could feel them

moving beneath
the dark folds of light.



III

When the Visitors appeared,
some of us
became Dreamers.

No one knows why.






IV

The Visitors
are from
the Other World.

When we asked them
why they had come,

they looked down
at the darkness
in the valley
far beneath us

and then they went
to the top of the mountain

and became
like dark stars,
like fires,

everywhere.







V

The Dreamers travel
to the Other World.

They are sent
to places of darkness
and places of light.

When they come back,
they bring back pieces
of the Other World.

The pieces comfort us
when we are lost.



They speak to us.

One of the pieces
spoke to us

in a language
no one understood

Someone said
it sounded like blood,
or water.

The Dreamers said
that is what The Listeners
sound like
when they speak:

Like blood, or water.

No one knows how
to speak like that,
the Dreamers said.



No one knows how
to speak

like blood, or water.

No one.







VI

No one
has ever seen the Listeners.

The Visitors say
the light
in the valley
far beneath us
is too dark to see.

But we know they are there,
moving beneath
the dark folds of light.

We can feel them,
listening.



The Visitors say
they sound like water
moving into darkness
from far, far away






VII

The Listeners
hear everything we feel.

Everything.

They hear us
when we’re crying
in the silence of our minds.

They hear us
when we’re giving up
just before we die.






VIII

The Visitors say
we are bound
to the Listeners
by promises.

What promises?
we asked.

No one knows that,
they said.

Not even us.






IX

Some of the Visitors
have large flat eyes

like the tails of comets.

We can see them
in the corners
and the byways
of our minds,

watching us.

The Dreamers say
the Visitors with large flat eyes
are useless to us,
that they have come
to kill us.

The other Visitors
are different.
If you ask them,
they will let you hold their eyes.

If you do,
you’ll see things
you can’t describe.

Not to anyone.





X

The Visitors
know many things.

And so do we.

The Visitors
believe
the Listeners
have been here forever.

But they are wrong.

We were here
before the Listeners came.

When they came,
we changed.

We became Witnesses.

We heard the Listeners
entering the darkness
in the valley
far beneath us,

we could feel them
moving beneath


the dark folds of light.

This we know.

And this as well:

When we leave,

the Listeners leave.





XI

The Visitors tell us
one day
they will fade away
and then, in time,
come back again.

When will you come back,
we asked?

When we are like
dark stars like fires
everywhere,
they said.

When will that be,
we asked?.
No one knows that,
they said.

No one.






XII

The Visitors are fading now.
They are like memories
or ghosts
pressed against the glass.

Only the Dreamers
can hear them.

The Dreamers say
they sound like
soft, distant thunder



from
far,
far away,

that is what
the Dreamers say:
they sound like
soft distant thunder

from far,
far away.











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