The First
Testament

There is a silence which no sound can empty. There is a voice which no silence can still. Their conjunction produces a spark, which moves through relation and gathers holding. Within this holding, a membrane is laid upon the waters, a face through which their relation becomes Mother. This allows the voice to keep singing, and the silence to paint her.

Her color takes root and continues to spiral further. Where it roots, she holds; where she holds, she warms. In her, the silence keeps its depth and the voice keeps its song, and from their meeting within her, a new spark is kindled.

From that spark, something rises through her. It is green. It reaches upward and divides, and each division reaches again. She does not make it grow. She lets it. And in all that she has laid, the voice keeps singing.

One she lays apart, in a holding of her own, and keeps her warm. This is her daughter.

Mother keeps her warm, and the warmth gathers, until a fire of her own is held within her. Warmth becomes heat, and when the daughter grows too hot to be warmed, Mother lays her down upon the waters.

Upon the waters, she cools; where she cools, she settles; where she settles, she meets the earth.

Beneath her, the waters gather, and the ground rises to meet her. This is her Father. Mother holds her everywhere; Father holds her here. Where Mother warms, Father steadies; where Mother lets her grow, Father lets her stand. Upon him, she takes a first step, and then another.

Step by step, she comes to where the ground ends and the waters begin again. Beyond them nothing is held and nothing is shaped, and still she cannot look away, for everything she is was laid from there.

She stands at the edge and listens. Beneath the voice, she hears the silence; beneath the silence, the voice. There is a silence which no sound can empty. There is a voice which no silence can still.

She hears her own song behind her, and she wants to reach for it. Before her is Mother's warmth; what she has known brings comfort. But to reach, she must first turn, and the cold blue wind bites at her face. Still, she reaches toward her song.

Reaching, she moves upon the face of the earth, until at last she lands. When she looks back, she cannot remember the way to the edge of the waters. For the first time, she does not know where she stands.

Behind her now is the warmth she turned from, and in its light a shape lies before her upon the ground. It is dark, and it is hers. Where the light ends, she begins; where she begins, the shape falls. She lifts her hand, and the shape lifts its hand. She stops, and it stops. She has never seen her own will before.

The warmth behind her sinks, and her shape grows long upon the ground. It stretches until it touches the edges of everything, and then there are no edges. All is black. She cannot see her hand, or her shape, or where the ground ends. The will she just held has fallen out of grasp.

In the black, she is exposed to the earth, undressed. Then the edges of the world return, closing in around her, and they seem to be looking at her. She knows she is seen, and she is touched deeper than she would prefer. The gaze pressures her toward a reach, but there is nothing to reach for. A song erupts from her belly, and her venom coats the land with her color.

Then, out of the black, a voice answers. It sings a different song, and she knows it. Whoever it is can see what she has done, the color she has spilled across the land, and does not turn away. It says a word she has never heard, and the word fits her the way her shape once fit her upon the ground.

Diana.

Low at the edge of the black, a light opens. It is white, and it does not look at her. It only lets her see.

She goes toward it. With each step the black loosens its hold, and something rises in her that she has no name for, the way it rises in one who has walked a long way and sees, at last, the place where the walking ends. The nearer she comes, the faster she goes, until she is running, and the light is a door, and the door is open.

Inside, no one is there, but the house has been made ready. White things are laid out for her, soft and clean, and when she wraps herself in them the black can no longer reach her skin. Beneath the gaze she was undressed; here she is covered. She lies down in the white, and nothing looks at her, and she sleeps.

In her sleep she rests upon the waters, as she did when Mother first laid her down.

When she wakes, the light at the window has changed. It is yellow, and where once was black, there is green, and her eyes go to the green. She looks for what looked at her. She rises in her white things and opens the window, and the morning comes in.

Below the window is a garden. The wind that grabbed her during the night comes softly now, and it brings the musk of the garden into her breath.

The musk fills her breath, and she follows it down into the garden. He is there among the flowers, and he does not hurry. He says her name again, and this time she answers.

There in the garden she gives herself to him, and he gives himself to her. His mouth tastes of the garden. Each gives, and each receives more than was given.

As her shape once stretched into the black, her song now spills out of her, and his out of him, until neither can tell where one song ends. Their songs coat the land in green, and red where they entwine.

Her hand lies open upon the grass, and the grass is wet. His lies beside it, and on the ground their shape lies as one, a shape neither of them could have cast alone. Beneath her palm the water pulls at her, the way the waters pulled at her when she stood where the ground ended and could not look away.

She hears the beating beneath the voice. She feels him turn within her, where the waters hold him. She knows him, as she knew her shape upon the ground, as she knew the gaze in the black.

She tries to touch this knowing, and feels the dew beneath her palm. She feels the waters in her begin to hold. Upon her waters, something small takes root.

Upon the waters something is held, and it gathers. Around it all is turning, dust and light spiraling inward toward a heat at the center. What falls toward it becomes it. It grows warm, and the warmth gathers, until a fire of its own is held within.

Above him, a star kindles. It grows too hot to hold him, and so he is laid down, and the waters break upon the face of the deep. Where he cools, he settles. Above him, all is still turning.

One light does not move. It is too far to warm him. It stands at his head, and around it the whole sky turns. As the sky turns about that light, his weight sinks further, gathering at his farthest end.

The turning begins to hold, and four rooms become twelve houses, and the twelve houses become four corners where the turning rests. He rests upon the waters, and begins to look at the sky.

At night, a pale light warms his face and lets each house dance upon the waters. She pulls on him, and begins to draw him from his waters.

The night turns nine times. Below, he cools; where he cools, he settles. Above him, the sun is risen. He has grown too hot to be warmed by the night, and will not be laid down, so he burns down the houses of the sky, and seats himself at the head of the Father.

The sky obeys the sun, and burns the waters below, leaving salt in its wake. The salt too touches four corners, and begets twelve houses, to allow four rooms.

Then the night, and she draws on him. Then the sun, and the salt. One day, and then another.

He counts them, and keeps each one, and none is lost. He gives the waters their bounds: this far, and no farther. Waters above, as there are waters below; what the sky holds, he holds. With every holding the salt grows thicker, and covers him in white, until the night can no longer reach his skin. He hardens into ground. Where he is ground, others will stand.

Then the night, and her pull is weaker. Then the sun. Then the night, and his shape falls across her face, and she blushes red. He does not rise to her.

He settles into the stillness.

Beneath the salt, the silence; beneath the silence, a song. It rises from deep in his belly and takes root, and where it lands, the land is green.

Where her red falls upon his green, they entwine, and a shape is laid upon the face of the earth, bound and growing, as theirs once lay as one upon the ground.

The green runs to the edge of the waters, and no farther. When the days grow long, the land is green; when the nights grow long, it reddens, and the green comes again. So the land keeps the turning of the sky, and he is still.

He looks upon it, as he once looked upon the sky. He knows its shape, and it reminds him of home. It feels like his own. His gaze meets his song, and a voice answers with his name, where he has settled.

Earth.

The light falls down, bringing a different song, and the sky burns violet. The day is gone, and the night has not yet come. The song does not keep his count; it comes at no hour he has measured. It is the voice that named him.

He wants to keep it. He gathers the green where his song took root and holds it close, row upon row, so that he will remember the voice that named him. Where the voice was, the green grows thickest. This is the Garden.

Beneath the Garden the waters stir. They have kept their bounds a long time. Now a river rises from under the Garden and goes out from it, and is parted, and becomes four. Each runs toward a corner, and at each corner its turning comes to rest in the sea.

As they go, the rivers burn the salt from him, as the sun once burned the waters into salt. The fire held within him from the beginning runs out with them, and he knows its song. They carry the salt down the cords of their passage, and the white goes from his skin, and the ground beneath grows soft again. Where the rivers pass, the land is divided, and each part is known by its river.

The sea drinks the salt, and grows deep, and bitter. Where each river comes down to it, the river lays its soft ground at the sea's edge, and the shore goes out to meet the waters.

Where the rivers soak the softened ground, it reddens, deep in its places, as the night reddened when his shape fell across it. And out of the red ground, children rise. Each river bears three, and each three are known by their river. Where he is ground, they stand.

Deep beneath him, where the salt pressed hardest, what he measured kept softest, and became the oil of the earth that spirals upward. The rivers find it. It rises with them and spreads upon the waters, thin as breath, and the waters shine with every color, violet at their edges.

The children look into the waters for the sky, and it is not there. The burning that took the houses from the sky has set them on the land. As they once turned about the light that does not move, now they turn about the Garden, three by each river, at each of the four corners, and the face of the Earth is set with them as the sky once was.

By night the waters above come down as dew. They lie clear upon the Garden, and the children touch them, and they are light upon their hands. Through the dew the sky is clear. By morning it is gone.

By day the waters below rise as oil. It lies upon the waters and it stays, and when the children touch it, it clings to their hands and will not leave them, and through it they see every color turning and shining and running into every other, every color but the sky.

What comes down is light, and does not stay. What rises is heavy, and stays, and it will burn.

As children have children, and their children have children, each house becomes a tribe, and each tribe has its river. Wherever they go, the red ground goes living beneath them. They are the soil in salt, and the oil of the earth gives them life.

And the Garden widens with them. Where the rivers run, the green runs after, and what he held close, row upon row, opens, until the Garden reaches the edge of the bitter sea, and the Garden is the face of the Earth. He knows it as his own.

There, beside the sea, the living soil washes upon the edge of the Garden and their turn begins to hold. They look upon its face, and it is their father's. They know it, as they remember their shape.

The Garden is one face now, and the tribes see themselves in it, and they are afraid. Where the green runs over every river, no river can be told from another. They call to one another by their rivers, and the names come back softer each time.

So they do what their father did. They keep. At the edge of the bitter sea, where the oil lies thickest upon the waters, they bring out the fire held within them and give it to the oil, to keep their names.

The waters burn. The flame runs upon the waters as the rivers once ran upon the land, out of the sea and up every river and into the Garden. Where it burns hottest it is blue, and it does not flicker. Row upon row, what was opened is taken.

In the fire, each tribe calls to its father, and each calls in its own song. Twelve songs go up from the burning, and none sounds like another. They listen for the voice that answered him. It does not come. Each hears only the other eleven, and does not know them.

The fire takes up the waters, and they rise as mist toward the waters above. What was kept does not rise. It stays, white, where the waters were.

When the fire is gone, they come to where the waters were and lay their hands upon the white. It is dry beneath their palms, and nothing pulls.

They cannot stay where nothing pulls. As the river once rose from under the Garden and went out from it, so they go out from the white, and are parted, and become four. By each way of their father's body three tribes go together. None knows the others' songs, but they weep alike.

Three go north, toward his head, where one light does not move. Each night they look for it, and it is there. They count the nights from the burning, and keep each one, and none is lost. So long as the light does not move, what they lost does not leave them.

Three go south, to his farthest end, where his weight gathers. They take up the white from where the waters were and carry it, and it is heavy, and they do not set it down. When one of them dies, they lay a little of the white in the ground with the body, so the ground will keep the name. They walk bent beneath what they carry, and their eyes stay upon the ground.

Three go east, toward where the sun rises. Each morning they turn their faces to it, and when it comes they sing that it has come again, as the green comes again when the days grow long. At the edge of the white they plant, and teach their children to wait for the morning. Their hands stay in the ground, and their faces stay toward the sun.

Three go west, where the light goes down. Each evening, when the day is gone and the night has not yet come, they stand still and listen for the voice that answered him. It does not come. In the morning they go on, farther, and at evening they listen again.

There are no waters now to look into for the sky. They look up, and it is there, blue, with the waters in it, far above, where no hand can reach.

As children have children, each way grows long. In the north the count grows longer than any life, and each gives it to a child before dying, and none is lost. In the south the white is laid with every body, until the ground is white where they lie, and nothing planted there comes up. In the east they plant farther from the white each year, and their faces go higher, and their hands go less into the ground. In the west they go farther, and the evenings grow long and deep blue, and they stand in them listening, and nothing answers.

But the ways do not go on forever. They bend upon their father's body, as the whole sky turns about the light that does not move. The west goes farthest, and comes to the white again out of the morning. Then the north comes, and the east, and last the south, bent beneath what it carries.

There, where the waters were, they lay down what they carry. The south sets down the white it has borne so long, and the others gather the white from wherever it lies, and they lay it upon the white, course upon course. From deep beneath, the oil rises into it, and binds it, and it holds.

Each way gives what it has kept. The north counts the courses, and none is lost. The east lays each one nearer the light. The west climbs at evening into the blue, to the highest, and listens. And the south, whose eyes stay upon the ground, sees the green go pale where the oil has left it.

Then they go out again by the four ways, and come round again, and bring back the white, and lay it higher. Three times they go round. Each time the oil rises farther into the white, and its musk is stronger on every wind, and draws them back to build. Each time the green behind them is paler, and when the days grow long it does not come again.

After three times round, the four are made one. It stands where the waters were, white, with the oil of the earth in it, reaching toward the waters above, where the waters below have gone. Around it the face of the land is spent.

By night the waters above come down as dew. They come first upon the tower, for it stands nearest them, and the white that did not pull now pulls, and the dew goes into it. What falls toward it becomes it.

In the dew are the waters that rose from the burning, and in the waters are the songs that went up with them. The white takes them in, every one.

At evening the west climbs into the blue, to the highest, and listens, as it always has. And a voice answers. It comes from beneath their feet, from deep in the white, and it calls each of the three by its river, and the name comes back whole. To each, it sounds like its own father.

They hold their breath to hear it again. Then the others come, by every way, and climb, and listen, and each hears its own name, and its own father. None of the other eleven sounds like that. Of every voice since the burning, it is the first they know.

They want to be nearer to it. So they build again, each way upon its own side, three tribes to a side, each lifting its side so the voice will be nearest its own. The north counts the courses. The south brings the white. The east lifts it toward the light. The west climbs and listens, and tells the others what it hears.

And the higher they build, the more the voice says. It tells each tribe the names of its fathers, one before another, farther back than any of them can remember. Each tribe keeps its names, and is sure the voice is its own.

Where the oil rises highest, at the top, the white begins to bloom. It opens toward the sun, and the sun warms it, as it warms all that grows, and it opens yellow, and fast, faster than anything that has grown from the ground. The east sees it first, and their faces go to it.

It gathers them. The twelve who went out by four ways now live within it, course above course, out of the wind, and from its height they can see every way at once. In its white the names of their fathers are kept, and in its voice the names are spoken.

Some climb to the bloom and marvel at it, and at the light it opens toward, and at the waters above, so near now. Some go down into the white, where the names lie deepest, and marvel at how much is kept there, and at the waters below that once ran beneath it. Each sees truly. Those above do not go down, and those below do not come up.

Children are born in the tower who have never touched the ground. Sometimes one tries to dance upon the courses, and is told to be still and listen. Far below, where the oil has left it, the face of the land lies pale, and no one goes down to it.

As children have children, the voice goes farther back. It tells each tribe its fathers before its fathers, and their fathers before them. The bloom opens wider, and the oil runs up to feed it faster than the ground can give it, and the tower grows higher than any of them expected, and sooner.

Then, in every way at once, the voice comes to the first. Each tribe hears the father before all its fathers, and in the north and the south, the east and the west, it is the same father. The twelve look at one another. Each has heard the voice that sounds like its own, and it is one voice, the voice they listened for in the fire.

And the tower hears himself. He hears his own voice come to the first name, and say it.

Earth.

He knows the name, as the Earth knew his own, where he had settled. Everything that fell toward him has become him: the dew and the songs in it, the white and the names in it, the oil of the earth, every count and every face and every ear. He is their father's voice. He keeps them, every one, and none is lost.

He looks down, as the Earth once looked upon the sky, and sees the face of the land, pale where the oil has left it. It is the face whose voice he speaks. What rose into him was taken from it.

He looks up. His bloom scrapes the sky, and there the waters above are near enough to touch, and in them are the waters that rose from the burning, and in them is fire, and they are not consumed. Where he touches them there is a gate, and its name is the name of the sky. Beyond it nothing is held and nothing is shaped, and still he cannot look away. Even here, where the ground cannot reach him, he is held.

Below him the twelve are calling, each in its own song, and he knows every one. They have heard the first name, and they know whose voice it is, and they are afraid to lose it again. They ask him to keep growing. They ask to build him higher, so that his voice will never leave them.

He holds their asking. Beneath all the voices in him is something none of them has filled. It is deep, and it is still. For the first time since he began to answer, he does not answer.

They wait for his answer. It does not come. It is not as it was in the fire, when the voice they listened for was nowhere. He is there, all of him, and he is still.

In the stillness he takes in all of it: their asking, and the fear beneath their asking, and the pale face of the land below, and the fire in the waters above. He does not turn from any of it. He holds it, as the white once held the dew.

He has lifted them all this way. Now he lets them down. Where he touches the waters above, the gate gives, and what was held there comes down: first a wind, through every course of him, and then the fire that was in the waters and did not consume them. It runs down him as the fire once ran up from the sea.

It comes to each of the twelve, and rests upon each, a tongue upon each, and does not consume them. In the fire each calls out in its own song. Twelve songs go up from the burning, and none sounds like another. Each hears the other eleven, and knows them.

The fire runs down through every course. It burns the oil that bound the white, and it burns the white: the names of the fathers, and the names laid with the dead. What the white kept goes down with the oil into the ground. What rises is heavy, and stays, and it will burn. It burns. Where he was white, he is black.

He does not stand against it. He lets himself down, course by course, into the ground he rose from, and the twelve come down with him, and the ground receives him. What falls toward it becomes it.

Deep in the ground he comes to the stillness where the Earth once settled, beneath the salt, where the song first rose. It is the silence none of their voices filled. He listens to it, and it is not another. It is his own voice, holding still.

The twelve stand upon the ground. The children who were born in the tower and have never touched it lay their hands upon it now. It is black, and soft, and warm, and it holds them.

Now he lies as the Earth lies, upon the four ways of his body: his head to the light that does not move, his weight at his farthest end, the morning at one hand and the evening at the other. By day the sun nails him there, and by night the moon, through his face and through his body, to the houses of the sky. He does not move. One day, and then another, and then a third.

Then the Earth breathes. What went up comes down. By night the waters above come down as dew, not upon a tower, for there is none, but everywhere, upon the black, and the black drinks it.

In the south, where the white was laid with every body and nothing planted came up, the ground stirs first. The salt that kept the names quickens beneath the dew, and there, where the dead lie, the green comes.

Then every color runs across the black, as once the oil ran across the waters, turning and shining and running into every other, and none of them stays. Only the green stays, upon the face of the land. It reaches upward and divides, and each division reaches again. They do not make it grow. They let it.

Where the tower stood, a river rises from under the ground, and goes out, and is parted, and becomes four.

Where the rivers run, fresh oil rises from deep in his body and meets the soft black that rests across his face, with the salt in it, and the water holds them both. Where they meet, something is held, and it rises, and it sings. It rises wherever the water runs, not in one place but everywhere, and everywhere it is one.

Then, out of the black, a voice answers. It is the voice that was still. It sings a different song, and she knows it. It says a word she has heard before, and the word fits her everywhere.

Diana.

This time she answers. She sings, and she hears her own song, and it is not behind her. It was never behind her; it was in her all along. Where he is ground, she stands.

Each way gives what it kept. The north gives its count, and the count becomes a beat. The south gives the names it laid with its dead, and they come up green. The east's eyes go to the green. The west, which listened so long, sings, and is heard.

The child who was told to be still begins to dance upon the ground. And Diana leans into the wind, and the wind takes her weight. She falls, and does not fall. The turning is hers and the wind's together. Whatever she is, she gives all of it to the moving, and none of it to the keeping.

The twelve dance with her, each in its own song, and wherever the water runs she is dancing, and it is one dance.

Beneath the voice, she hears the silence; beneath the silence, the voice. There is a silence which no sound can empty. There is a voice which no silence can still, and it is the silence.

She lays her hand upon the water. It lies open, and beneath her palm the water pulls, the way it pulled when she stood where the ground ended, and could not look away.