Wings A Mile Long

a forty year old today Winterland Eyes of the World...6/8/77

A thing happens once
that has never
happened before.
Seeing it,
a man looks upon reality.
He cannot tell others
what he has seen.
Others wish to know, however,
so they question him saying,
What is it like,
this thing you have seen?
So he tries to tell them.
Perhaps he has seen
the very first fire
in the world.
He tells them,
It is red, like a poppy,
but through it
dance other colors.
It has no form,
like water, flowing everywhere.
It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer.
It exists for a time upon a piece of wood,
and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten,
leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand.
When the wood is gone, it too is gone.
Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water,
like the sun, like that which eats and excretes.

They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it.
They call it fire.
If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, fire does not matter, earth and air and water do not matter. I do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.

Roger Zelazny
Lord of Light

Grateful Dead: Brokedown Palace...6/8/77

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