Senlin, A Biography: Part 01: His Dark Origins - 01
Conrad Aiken
Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
‘I stepped from a cloud’, he says, ‘as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;
Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . .
Has no one, in a great autumnal forest,
When the wind bares the trees,
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown?
Has no one, on a mountain in the spring,
Heard Senlin sing?
Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,—
Riding alone from the deep-starred night.
Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,—
Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.’
He lights his pipe with a pointed flame.
‘Yet, there were many autumns before I came,
And many springs. And more will come, long after
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.
The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Become an ancient forest. There is no sound
Except where an old twig tires and falls;
Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls;
Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground.
Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin?
Is Senlin the wood we walk in, —ourselves,—the world?
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer,
Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . .
Yet we would say: this is no wood at all,
But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall;
And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair,
Lights his pipe with a meditative stare.
