Universe One to Ten

by Jeffrey Armstrong

Love in the name of desire becoming need,
Three blessed children of unrefined light,
Born when lonely Cosmos cast His seed
Into the waiting womb of the Queen of Delight.
Pleasure, alone, drunken on Soma and wine,
Red pulsing mountains tossed their molten spue,
Plunged in rushing torrents to the sea,
Thrusting skyward, rock in a jagged line,
Changing the sky to purple, the waters to blue,
A yellow spark in the black of eternity.
Three in time, from the One, started out a pair,
Aching with hunger, for form and solid state,
Burst from the cracks in space sprang forth the air,
to lock does one in a circle begin to mate.
Red rushing, blue falling, spinning yet out of sight,
Shuddering violently, broken from end to end.
One downward, one upward, point out and base to base,
Flashed a blinding beginning incredibly bright
Then suddenly breaking in pieces began to blend,
Standing as shadows, reflecting another embrace.
Two thus divided, emerged once again as four,
Unseen and encompassing, nothing then added one more,
Time, in the silent beginning, the middle was 5.
Life-giving lotus, sprung from a bottomless lake,
Navel and nave to the spiralling dance of the seven,
This is the paradox, turning a blazing wheel.
Fountains revolving in concert with finally make
A fabric immortal, bright blue print of starry heaven.
Streams flowing downward to life, recreating the real.
Nine, now a mysterious sphere of reflected dreams,
The shape-shifting parity, lamp in the comfortless night,
Priest of illusions, playing the princess it seems,
Opened the palette of colors, pretending in white.
Love and desire, with need rising once again,
Waving at life dressed in rainbows, appearing free.
Swift-moving mansion, home of the recently dead.
Hidden inside the busy pretensions of ten,
En tangled in images, caught in infinity—
Earth from the one descended, blue, yellow and red.