Sahriv/Tempest

Canto V

Solektra - Shi’yon/Earth - Volcano

by Shoshana

V  SOLEKTRA - SHI’YON/EARTH - VOLCANO

Final consummation is drawing near

that will break the interminable fever

at the edge of the seething caldera

under an ominous sky the lion cowers

pummeled by smoking pumice

and singed by searing cinder

battered by blasting basalt

and assaulted by falling ash

cascading chaos of mountain fire

is hailing down upon him

the escalating rampage

is harbinger of impending explosion

violent prelude to violent end

of endlessly violent desire

Seleya’s final paroxysm

before deceptive hibernation    

the slumber of seven years

culmination he has yearned for

climax he has feared

Rocky extrusion thrusts ever upward

the mountain’s cataclysmic upheaval

that must end in its collapse

swelling intensifying ferocity

rips open new fissures in the earth

that ooze red-hot internal liquids

broken earth vents noxious gases

in frenzied terror the lion lashes out

transformed in this moment of extremity

into a frantic combative animal

erupting in explosive fear to escape its tormentor

a wild creature that once was tame

but has now forgotten love

a captive beast  storming to protect itself

from the terminal fury bearing down upon it

you survived fire and water and desert

but Seleya awakened is an anvil

on which you are being hammered

beyond endurance beyond recognition

I threaten to pound you out of existence

I am become ravenous monster           

devouring you with jaws drooling hot lava

digesting your flesh in a gullet churning with hot magma 

your confused
                           ears are filled with crazed roaring

cries from a lonely distance

both very far and strangely near

the roaring your own voice and another not your own

but no longer can you tell the difference

all sound is howling in the wind

rumbling of a dying mountain

thunderclaps in a darkened sky

because you have lost yourself

on a vulcanhot convulsing bed of earth

where two agonized wild animals fight to survive

seething passion sheer panic searing pain

are melded into

one

Your teeth tear at my arms

your nails claw at my flesh

and with one anguished silent thought

the first words in years you have
                           deliberately projected into my mind  

you scream in supplication both to me and to yourself 
                                     

              NO! – PLEASE STOP! 

because part of
                           you still remembers love

you abhor the animal to which you are reduced

you
                           grieve for the brute I have become   

and in these last awful moments

before seleya explodes into oblivion  

the door to your mind is flung open 

comes
                           crashing down

you unable in pain and terror  

to
                           keep raised the mental shields as I taught you 

the shields you have always kept
                           raised 

even in the throes of passion

the opening which
                           during the storm has been a crack 

admitting to your mind only slivers of my agony  

and to me splinters of your pain 

each
                           of us alone in his suffering   

that opening now
                           a raw and gaping black hole 

a wound exploding with white luminosity 

I
                           see the darkness but I follow the light 

for the first time your mind is stripped bare to me
                           

as naked as the body writhing under my own

your
                           inner self laid more open to my own 

than my loins are to your flesh 

and
                           I am reawakened to our love 

I detest the beast to which I am reduced  

I mourn the animal you have become

for
                           an instant that is as an eternity 

your suffering claws at my brain

your
                           hurt roars in my mind

your pain compounds my own 

and
                           I know the same is true for you 

but then in the blazing touch of our minds

deeper
                           than any mind meld I have known 

for both of us is mercy found

as
                           agony suddenly is burned away  

in the purifying
                           flame 

of burning knowledge of the other

I do not understand
                           how this can be

but when you silently screamed for mercy

the
                           remanance of my love for you was energized

the magnetization between us has come alive 

electric
                           energy hums and thrills between us

carried on the cord of our bond 

we
                           first heard these strains when you carried my katra

sometimes in muffled muted snippets
                           half heard and confused  

other times in
                           a blaring dissonant jangled cacophony

that overwhelmed your burdened brain

but
                           for the first time we hear the melody played full measure

a canon sung by two 

we
                           do not yet know all the harmonies or variations 

but now we know the tune 

I smellseetastehearfeel you and all that you smellseetastehearfeel

and
                           I know the same is true for you as with me  

we
                           senseknowshare fully all that lurks in the other’s mind

the sweet and the bitter both 

all
                           the fear and pain and shame and madness 

and love recognized and regained 

and
                           as you are pulled toward insanity 

I am pulled away from it

and
                           we meet in the middle 

I am the alien animal thrashing within my grasp 

you
                           are the monster that attacks me   

but
                           no longer are we Vulcan and Terran

but instead a single planet 

one
                           hemisphere robed in daylight

the other cloaked in black night   

both equally parts of the whole 

at
                           the same moment in silent words we say to each other 

I did not understand I am sorry
                           beloved I could not stop myself 

I could not help myself I am sorry t’hy’la
                           I did not know  

we are sorry –

Here on Seleya to which once I fled forsaking the stars

because
                           I could not face my love for you

Seleya which once I departed 

abandoning
                           kolinahr to return to space 

because I heard your voice calling to me across light-years

Seleya
                           where our lives and sanity endangered

yoursoulmykatra were rent asunder in al-tor-pan

here on this Seleya we have faced 

a
                           different insanity and a different danger 

in this crucible of cold heat and lonely union    

here through a strange alchemy
                           we are rejoined in a fusion

we neither sought nor knew existed

I
                           did not realize pon farr could be the sharing of selves

rather than the taking of the body

you
                           did not know you could not know

that allowing the door open in this moment

would
                           be not to lose yourself 

but instead to discover us both anew 

a
                           filling rather than an emptying 

an oasis unexpectedly found in the barren desert

dry
                           land blessedly beneath one’s hands and feet 

after having been tossed by a raging
                           ocean

We are hunger
                           and satiation

anger and reconciliation

wound and healing

savagery and gentleness  

blindness and sight

need and fulfillment

selfish indifference and generous love 

for hate is not the opposite of love

and the only hate that touches us here

is that which we hold for ourselves

because of what we have done to the other who is ourself

the one who is called beloved

fear and the lack of fear

which as well you know my lion

is not the same as courage

for courage is the strength to stand facing one’s fear

and courage has touched you here  

because for an instant that was as an eternity  

you were terrified by this unimagined intimacy

but in a gift to us both

born of your questing curiosity

and most of all your generous love

you did not slam closed to me the door to your mind

For
                           the first time in days your own arousal springs forth

hard and hot and alive and eager

raging
                           need pulses through our veins

blazing in the blood

drumming
                           in our hearts

throbbing in our groins

and in our bowels
                           our bones our brains

lust is translated to pure desire

I
                           still hunger for your body 

but now I want and possess all of you 

the
                           inquisitive mind that ventured to the stars

an idiosyncratic amalgam 

of
                           quick intelligence and illogic

the heart, generous and loving

compassionate
                           and stubborn 

loyal and lion-brave

of the lonely
                           soul who called to me across the void

across death and madness while you held my katra

across
                           sheer terror here on Seleya 

your soul that in this moment is lonely no longer 

This shared passion is a different madness

we are become
                           a volcano churning forth flame from dark depths 

ready to explode itself into long dormant sleep

a plant with roots groping blindly in dark earth

leaves stretching toward the light

both acts equally necessary for survival

and our bond is a bud unfolding among the leaves into beauty

normally we see only

the spewing fire the reaching greenness 

not the dark and hidden places that give these things birth 

we are anvil and hammer blacksmith and worked metal all become one

we are the hunter and the hunted and the hunt itself

hunter and hunted

trapped
                           on the mountain’s

heaving precipice 

of
                           dormancy

sudden shudderings 

abrupt and expected

in
                           birth pang 

death rattle both

with conclusive concussive

convulsive
                           contractions

final earthquake comes

engorged volcano

discharges
                           eruption lava hot

internal chambers emptied

hunter
                           and hunted 

together overcome 

on the trembling
                           secret 

bed of earth

both slain 

in
                           Seleya’s final paroxysm

both fallen 

the
                           long hunt ended 

as logic is melted
                           

     into molten
                           passion

madness smelted 

into comprehension

     and on love’s anvil of desire

          the Two

               are
                           melded into

                   
                           One.

Notes for Canto V:  solektra:  Vulcan for “earth; ground; dirt”      

shi’yon:  Vulcan for volcano