Song to the Beloved

Beloved,

My voice is lost in a ringing ear,
but a still spirit shall hear me well
so quiet yourself and drink in
these words of my soul.

Like wolves in a hunt
I have sought after your heart,
never content just to come close
for you were made for me,
and I would not rest until I had all of you.

Do you remember when I rescued you?
How I carried you down to the sea
and let the salt water cleanse your wounds
I picked the brambles out of your hair
and replaced them with flowers;
peony and primrose.

You were timid at first
as you lay naked before me
and you would not meet my gaze.
Your soul, too, lay bare in the sand
and as I washed it clean
you began to realize how great
was my love for you.
How all along I have seen you
as you were meant to be –
wholly pure and unashamed
as they were in the garden.

Now, again, you lay before me,
arms weary from carrying so many burdens,
your eyes upon the shadows below
rather than upon the light above
ears ringing from the well-intentioned words
of so many who have never known you
as I have known you.

Beloved, remember me.
Remember me, your first love,
the source of all love,
all truth,
all beauty,
and O, how beautiful you are to me,
elegant as swans in a crystal lake,
bold and gentle in spirit,
and deep as the ocean floor,
but it all amounts to nothing
if you forget me, my love.

Rest with me a while
for I am always with you.
Listen to my heartbeat
and you will know
that which a thousand words
could never express.
Listen to the waves
and I will unpack your burdens for you
and your sorrows will become joys
just as night becomes day.

Go into the world, beloved,
and take my strength with you.
I will be your covering,
your rock,
your bread and wine.
I have known you,
I have loved you,
I am more than enough for you.

Deep in love

Deep in love
cheek leaning on cheek we talked
of whatever came to our minds
just as it came
slowly oh
slowly
with our arms twined
tightly around us
and the houses passed and we
did not know it
still talking when
the night was gone

by Bhavabhuti

You Have What I Look For

by Jaime Sabines

You have what I look for, what I long for, what I love,

you have it.

The fist of my heart is beating, calling.

I thank the stories for you,

I thank your mother and father

and death who has not seen you.

I thank the air for you.

You are elegant as wheat,

delicate as the outline of your body.

I have never loved a slender woman

but you have made my hands fall in love,

you moored my desire,

you caught my eyes like two fish.

And for this I am at your door, waiting.

W.S. Merwin poems

by W. S. Merwin

<!– (from The Shadow of Sirius) –> Youth

Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I

have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I

began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already

part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

Good Night

Sleep softly my old love
my beauty in the dark
night is a dream we have
as you know as you know

night is a dream you know
an old love in the dark
around you as you go
without end as you know

in the night where you go
sleep softly my old love
without end in the dark
in the love that you know

Pumpkin

Woman, you cannot play these games
for one day I will be gone, too
and I will howl at the moon for you
and move on.

You have left the mess from your heart
all over my hands
like pumpkin guts
and I try to grab you hard
because I want to hear you scream
but you are still slimy and distressed.

St. Christopher the Comforter

St. Christopher the Comforter

God, do you love to hear me babble?
Bible school cliches burst forth
seemingly unchecked
and all I want to tell her is
You are Loved!

You are loved, and the Love that cared enough
to wrest you from the grave
will guide you over these rifts.

The Love that saw you at your worst
and called out “daughter! come to me”
has not left your side.

And you are truly Loved,
by this fierce and gentle Love
which whispers and whispers
and whispers

…trust me

with all your heart, trust me.

Ode To Pork

I know you’re the blues

because loving you

may kill me — but still you

rock me down slow

as hamhocks on the stove.

Anyway you come

fried, cued, burnt

to within one inch

of your life I love. Babe,

I revere your every

nickname — bacon, chitlin,

cracklin, sin.

-Kevin Young