The Years of Milk and Tar

Descriere: "That which seems most gentle and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that built your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, and if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. "But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, and the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. "And one day you shall see. And one day you shall hear. "Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things, and you shall bless darkness as you would bless the light." After saying these things the Avatar looked about him, and he saw Charon, the pilot of his ship, standing by the helm and gazing now at the billowing sails and now at the distance. And he said: "Ah, patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship. The wind blows, and the sails are restless; even the rudder begs direction; yet quietly my captain awaits my silence. And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently. Now they shall wait no longer. I am ready. "The river has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast. Fare you well, people of Earth. This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep, and if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. "A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, my darling rosebud, a little while longer; a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. "Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a sweeter song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky. "Kiss me now as I go so that when I awaken on that far shore, I will remember what lulled me so gently to sleep: the touch of your lips on mine."