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Now there is no earth,
there s only water, only endless
water
clear to the four corners of nothing.
If Snake drank this
water,
Death would fall from him;
if Scorpion, dead, drank it,
he
would live again, rise
in a spatter of light.
The water shakes with the silence
of unknown sounds,
sounds that
haven't yet been heard.
All this endless, all this useless
water!
The Snake that drank would be deathless--
but there is yet no
Snake, no Scorpion.
Within this brightness,
within this blankness,
is only God
Kara-han,
the Gander flying lonely, [1]
flying
lonely above the water.
Above the waters, twisting mist
scented with colors not yet
seen,
God Kara-han flies white and lonely;
No sound yet nor
breath
but the eternal flutter
of the Gander's flight, the
ham-sa,
ham-sa of his beating wings.
The empty, lonely, quaking waters
became a mist, a mist that
entered,
thin and warm, the Gander s heart;
the Gander's wings drove
him on--
will Time come to free him from flight?
Nothing.
No song.
No
love.
Deadly chains, loose and broken,
rings in the water,
rings
of disorder.
Will Space come to free the Gander,
to free God
Kara-han from watery chaos?
Endless rings of ringing water
spread then to Time,
Time whose
mouth is a blood-soaked rose.
God Kara-han,
godly Gander, flew in
fear
of the unknown depths,
of unseen drunken, unseen
enchanted,
unseen things in the lonely water.
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The godly Gander flew without stop,
flew without rest, flew without
clinging
to any place;
flying so,
flying without love, without
trust,
God Kara-han trembled
in his godly flight,
and his
trembling churned, it shook, the water,
the water flared, then folded
darkly,
the water swelled and flowed to the pace
of God Kara-han's
flight:
"I am God,
I need not tremble.
I am God,
I shall not
fear."
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Yet the water did not calm,
it stirred within itself,
the water
within the waters
moved and parted, the waters folded open
and from
the deeps of the deeps,
a voice, a breath, a breath of voice
rose
and crooned: [2]
"Kara-han,
God
Kara-han,"
the
voice spread to the ends
of the endless water:
"Oneness becomes
you
God Kara-han,
Oneness is godly,
O godly Gander."
God Kara-han's eyes trembled like water,
his wings stretched
down
to the water's mouth:
"Who are you, speaking?
Where are you,
speaking?
I who am God,
I ask,
who are you, speaking?"
Time escaped the Gander's wings,
rushing forth, breaking
loose;
the water sang a crown for Time;
Time fell naked to the open
water.
The opened water wavered brightly
and bright Ak-ana rose in
brightness,
rose from the water's quaking mouth.
Time was silence.
God Kara-han's open mouth
was like the water
Time opened.
Ak-ana's brightness
brought the ends of endless
water
close to her, close to her beauty.
Her beauty flattened the
water,
confused the Gander:
"Who are you?
I who am God
do not
know you.
Are you spirit? Are you person?
Who are you,
bright and
shining?"
Together they shone,
together the brightness of Ak-ana
and God
kara-han shone:
"I am Ak-ana, water's sister,
I am your creature
whom you forget."
Had the endless water
been endless wine,
God Kara-han would not
have been more drunk.
Ak-ana's voice was the breeze
of summer
evenings,
her eyes were deeper than water,
longer than
Time:
"You, God Kara-han,
even you can forget,
have forgotten
water's sister.
Before you flew,
I was not.
Then I saw your
flight,
your bored and lonely flight."
"Speak, bright woman;
in your voice, loneliness is mist
that
fades in the sun;
in your eyes boredom is beauty's shadow.
Bright
woman, speak!"
Ak-ana's voice shivered bitterly:
"You are God,
single and
godly,
Oneness becomes you,
but Oneness is lonely,
Singleness
boring."
"I who am God
am God, yes, but who calls me God,
who
knows I am who am God?
Endless waters,
above them I fly;
endless
nothing,
below it I fly
There is no bottom to which I dive.
So
what is it worth
that I am god?
"Answer me.
"When I saw you,
Time flew from my wings,
and Time and Water and
I
now are ringed by loneliness."
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Ak-ana whispered:
"Create."
Water shivered, Time trembled
water and Time crushed loneliness
between them,
loneliness fled at the word Create.
Eternity
echoed in her voice,
her voice singed the Gander's
wings:
"Create!
Create!
Create!"
The water wavered inward,
the water folded and Ak-ana sank
again,
her brightness sinking in the deeps,
yet she left behind the
sigh,
heard everywhere, the sigh:
"Create!
Create!
Create!"
God Kara-han created Er-kishi,
created Er-kishi, double and
dark.
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