XENOPHANES A timeless world lives beyond this one. The esoteric men are studying to become god. When we are born, we are carried by miles of cloth over the sea. When we are born, we see first light, and then the hardness of the earth. And then we learn the way of the wise, or perish in the sea. The way of the wise is the way of the earth beneath our feet. We can feel the truth with our toes and fingernails. Over time the great sun perishes from the earth, and in time it is replaced with a watery sun. In fact, this happens every day. What is left of water is the moon. The salt of the earth is the soul of the sun. When the sun is made of water, it is concealed in the earth, and like the earth, humankind goes through transformations from death, to birth, and life and wisdom. Wisdom forgets its flame, and the watery trial returns to water when it returns to earth. Sacred flames arise from salt and potash, and are mixed with souls when we lay our eyes on them. And the sound of suns is enough to hear the gape of the world in all its hidden waters. Nothing is the same as the sun on the earth, for we have names for its strength, and songs for its blood. Nothing returns to the sun, but turns into snakes, and makes people hear the agony of a dying world. Assembling the sun is a long task that requires many fires. But none of the fires must return to the earth, but instead turn to the moon, and turn it into birds. Out of the flight of the birds comes the wise song of the earth, the eternal earth out of which gold is made. Wise are the wealthy men who collect gold and pearls and sacred gems, for they have a philosophical bent, and tread carefully on the earth, gathering sticks, and turning birds into stones that keep the water far from the shore. Nothing is the same as the sign of the sun and the bird, which holds the weight of wisdom upon the earth. The strange laughing sound of the bird is the desire of man for the weight of the earth. But the weight he must cast away, and cry, and keep the coins in the form of the sun. So weary the world, that he must keep, a fire within his cape, and a mind upon the heat. Stranger ways run separately like streams of fire into an abyss. Further along the paths made by men, the towers of gods quake, shooting fire, and spreading ropes to keep the earth from shooting into outer space! The gods are strangers in the sun, spreading a cape that lends glories to the earth and its men. Men too are strangers, strangers to the waters out of which men came! The strangest thing is strange men, who may be rich men or gods, who do not perish from the earth, rich enough to fly like birds and populate the far reaches of eternity! Nothing is the same as gods, who climb in the far reaches, and furnish gold for men to fly like birds and populate the earth. No one is stranger than the sun, even while the sun makes men and gods and makes men and gods rich, and furnishes the earth with birds and rain and the turning sound of the sun! Nothing is quite the same without birds and men and gods, and the far reaches of the earth from whence gold came, with birds and the rest! Shadows are angry with the sun, and draw their brows upon the caves where darker shadows grow, and gloomy gold may be shaved from the earth, and make men cry with dark tears of wisdom! Nothing is left of the golden earth from whence the gods came with their birds and song, like shadows of an ancient earth where the sun was made of gold! This is the same sun, even though a different earth! There may be gods still, who fly like birds, and make bright the world with their cries of wisdom! Nothing is quite the same as the earth where wisdom cries, and men fly like birds to find a world where birds fall, and the sun turns into water, and the world is no more. Night falls, and the shadows are angry, and the gold is far from the shadowy eyes of men. Frequently the world grows new vines that keep men’s mouths whet, without the gold they prized. Yet priceless wisdom comes from the gods, and gives the sun its hue. Birds cry as if to make the sound of gods. The ocean pours with the sound of a far-away world. The sun has speared the earth into earth and liquid, together removed from nothingness, which is the shadow of gods. Nothingness seems like a strange bird which shadows the songs of men and gods. Magic is made of birds, and makes the wells run dry, where men find gold and weep about the gods, tossing feathers at the shadows of birds. Nothingness is whet with the ends of the earth, trading fire for its song, just like the earth turns into the gods. Nothing holds the strange song of absence which shadows the earth like an angry bird. The emptiness is whet with the sounds of men, and the movements on the earth, which make the birds grow red and share their throats with the gods. Gold comes forth from the roads where people have met the world of the gods, and cried like men who have seen the darkest shadow cry. Women have words for the shape of shadows far, near the end of this world. Near the end of the sun, which turns the earth into stone, and makes women cry like divining gods. What is left of the sound of the sun, the way women and birds cry, the darkest shadows, the shape of empty theorizing, how the sun is drying on the earth with its bones sweating the specter of shadows? Nothing is empty is the sound of the birds, and the gods cry that the sun is setting. The features of the world weave shadows, and the birds descend. Nothing is left of the sun (at the end of the day). Coppedge, Nathan / SCSU 2016/12/24, p.