The Great Form is Without Shape
All life long
you are unhanding
unhanding and unhanding
what was handed you.
All life long
you throw out the line of life.
You throw out the line, stinging
up from your guts.
Were they planting trees,
your father and your mother?
Did they ever plant?
Is that a line of trees
far away
green line?
All life long
you include something
that includes your life.
You are in the egg.
( In the center of a picture,
two angels hold a transparent crystal
egg of teardrop shape. In the egg
the ocean god is throned, left leg
crossed over right, trident in right
hand. Under his outstretched arms two
children or little people stand, a boy
at his right, a girl at his left. The
boy’s head is crowned with a sun, the
girl’s, with a crescent moon.
That’s the middle level of
the picture. At the top a blazing
sun with human features dominates the
vertical axis. At the bottom a man
and a woman kneel on either side a
furnace, man to the right of the
furnace, woman to the left. In the
furnace itself, directly below the egg
containing the god, is suspended a
similar egg, empty. )
All life long
the dew falls from heaven
all life long
trees climb up from underground waters.
In the seed of the old god the new gods are swarming.
Earth is ready for planting.
The shut eye is opening.
The heat.
Copyright Credit: Gerrit Lansing, "The Great Form is Without Shape" from Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth. Copyright © 2009 by Gerrit Lansing. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books.