Axis Mundi
A poem and photo essay by Connor McMullen.
Axis mundi is a Latin term that can refer to a central place where the Heavens meet the Earth. These sorts of places have been on my mind a lot lately, and I took a walk through The Hague to try to get them out of my head.
Eyes black
Not looking back
A King's gift
Long since escaped
Making home in a new place
Invading birds
looking for some nests to pillage
No place in the city
Next stop
The beach village
Feathered friends
Follow the humans
Forever reaching further
Without limit, in all haste
No matter to what ground
They lay waste
Lines align
First verse
And already cheating rhymes
Women and children first
Out of the boat
And onto the tram
One of the many weird rules of life
Always give way to the pram
One of the few left
From yesterday
Most the best
Long fallen
At the hands of we
Old souls cry no more
They've lost sight
Of why they were supposed to fight
The world's tired
And the earth burns
Only thing to
Is take solace
In the few that still do
Like the hand that made the tram
Because it's when things look the worst
You'll find that
The right lines align
A single metal finger extended
One of millions of hands
Reaching up from the land
Accusatory protrusions
Jutting out the sand
Screaming to the stars
"How dare you
show yourselves to me!"
Blinding lights
Drowning out the night
Giving us
Just another way to forget
What it's like
To lay beneath an evening sky
Looking up and wondering "Why?"
Too far down, I'll have to go around. I have that choice.
The world does not.
Some things are better
when you don't try
Just let things lay
Wherever they want to be
So if this is the path
The many choose
What's it to them?
If it doesn't sit well with me.
Seems that's how these things go
How much sense does it make
To push back
Against the whole of human history
Not the only soul
Braving the cold
To come toss dreams
Unto the deep
In the sea
Where all things eventually sleep
Wether it falls from sky
Drip-dropping down in subtle splashes
Or breaks from the edge
Crumbling against relentless crashes
The sea is forever
The other place that connects us
To what we used to be
Now beyond that one thoughtful soul
Stands man's play abandoned play things
Today mostly hollow
An empty pier no one needs
The child with the fox tail
Tries run to no avail
Beyond the colorful threshold
There the world becomes slightly more wild
The dogs can run free here
Like I said, slightly.
But here even we just can't let things be
Construction booms loom
The city slowly sprawling
Eating sand dunes
One at time
But don't worry
It's all going according to plan
We'll stop growing
Someday
But probably not before
The wilds are no more
A working dog
Out of work
Generations bred
Mouths they fed
Today just another commodity
Little thought given
To what the relationship
Used to mean
Hand and paw
Side by side
Needing each other to survive
Today still loved
But like our connection
to the great mysteries
Broken by technology
they gets food from the store
Just like you
No longer are they a necessity
A once proud lineage
Now caged in houses
and walked down concrete streets
A reflection in the image of we
Another animal that's forgotten
What it is to truly be free
A weathered feather
Last flight
Long ago flown
Dying in the sand
A long time still
Until it's next life is known
Straight troughs
Crooked columns
The hand of man
Ever imprecise
Another forgotten mystery
The are few who can still hack and hew
Few to turn the earth
Live all winter
On all summer's work
It's not better
Now or then
It's just different
And at have so few things
To connect us
To them
When everything is askew
Pretend it's all normal
That's what I do
Pretend like you're oblivious
To the chaos around you
For a moment
My mind forgets
The purpose of this time
Ideas interrupted by others
Save it for later
If at all
Let them recover
I'm just here
To try to see the truth
In a thing or two
Off the main path
The style lasts
Out in the street
It's all the capitalism you can eat
An invented holiday
Proclaims best wishes
And what's a few kisses
Without flowers and chocolate
Or maybe ring
If that's your thing
But you better spend
If you don't want your love to end
Eyes down
Missed the step
Got wet
Followed the tracks
To get back home
Where I will sit alone
And ponder out future
Together traveling faster from the past
Then ever before
So what?
We've forgotten a few things.
Lost sight of the old ways.
But look at what we've gained!
Look at all these things!
We have it so easy!
Not everybody,
but soon.
Another numbered beacon
Beckoning from above
Calling to mind
Maybe a future time
When the saucers so fly
And all those questions
Are answered
With a whole new set of ones
That's the last hope
The true story we've all but forgotten
Our rescue can't come from within
We're too corrupt to see
What life could be
Too distorted to see past
Our shared history
It takes an outsider
To set the prisoners free
The night fades
After the day
A sad soul
Searching for comfort in the arms of another
No peace
Even with a lover
The end is beyond us
Yesterday it was nigh
Now it's gone
What you hear now
Are just the first notes of a swan song
We've all but forgotten
How to live any other way
We've forgotten all the old myths
Bringing knowledge and the wisdom
From that far away
There's no story-store
No other place we can find inspiration
Once our sky's blotted out
Our oceans boiling with waste
Our wild places relegated
Too tamed pets and depressing zoos
These special spots we can try to save
Keep some bit of sky open
Keep the big beach clean
Leave a sliver of Africa and South America uncolonized
Not because it was too hard.
Just because it was too far.
But every day
Our sacred sites close up
One by one
taken over by innocent people
And greedy industry
I lay awake at night
Pondering this tomorrow
Hoping I can do something
Anything
To save one or two.
But I still worry for humanity
Every day another place blinks away
Cutting us off from the axis mundi
And I wonder about these places.
How many?
Are too few?
Special thanks to my friend Nils for inspiring the second stanza of the first poem. The lines "Invading birds looking for some nests to pillage" are his.