Room 502
Strands of auburn hair upon the pillow
noble profile in October light:
How did we come to this, two mystics
spun into desire who merged and sank
together, ravished and undone?
Your gaze is turquoise-shattered light
igniting my desire, but can the craving
I attain by kisses spilled along your neck,
tongue-prayers pronounced upon your breast,
cause any moment to remain, or turn
caresses back on a receding wave,
collapsed into the arms that offer them?
Behold, the town below is lively,
crowds gather and the mood is gay,
the people stroll at ease and white clouds billow
through azure skies as we alone, gone shy,
secluded in this room, a little dazed,
drink nectar from each other’s eyes and
let our bodies kiss, embedded in the angled haze
of a flat and cool, departing sun
Our moment is this one, the moment
that is always now.
Our samaya
is here and touching us, skin on skin,
a play of living stains dissolving
and dissolved, a samsaric display mounted
on the moment it awaits, already come:
and poised upon incoming night,
falling with the oak leaves to the plein below
one flutter at a time, each breath
dissolved into the next, uncounted
Completion is, when desire does not go
or stay but conjugates another tense.
Adrift in slow motion, in a timeless void,
in emptiness as soft as falling snow:
these heartbeats in a merge, whence
we dissolve in whitening silence
In memory suspended, we are returned
to everything we ever knew or felt,
to all we ever were before at once, and
turned upon that recall passing,
spun on the core and melt of that sensation,
enter the halting stream of liberation
In beauty that delights itself, a surge
equal to death that does not die, not yet
Flick of your eyelash on my thigh,
your mouth wet and inviting, my belated sigh
Take me and make me, soft colors
running wild, this dye is set
Two bodies hurtled into hunger and away,
haste of these hands, soft tremble
of limbs that part and delay
Grace of sahaja, luminous, replete:
the void and this desire have one taste.
When I take you to ground, behind
your place of looking, there I stay.
In blaze serene, in mystic heat
I taste the memory of you in every place
you give, each nook and niche,
each favor you bestow, the slow wave of your hand,
your so adoring look, your secret scent.
I have it all in memory of you, intact
the instant you present it,
this memory such as makes itself exact
in every aching touch: my fingertip
upon your smile, tenderness-bound,
no other shore but this unlidded bank of
blind, unsinking bliss, witness
to no one around—no wonder
it goes everywhere
unseeking and unfound
Gate Gate Paragate
What we have wondered found us there
upon the rented bed that we unmade,
naked and new
The friendly stare of fate. A siddha’s dare.
Two jewels in the dew.
Your nectar smears my face, a fragrance
rare as ‘nard, the musky taste that does not slake
the thirst it so incites; even my buried
counter-pulse to your cradle-rocking care
does not efface the hunger-ridden ache
it takes to bring me there
No love is so released as ours.
It stems the very air we breathe.
Strands of auburn hair upon the pillow,
noble profile in this waning light,
tears of sweet joy the afternoon distilled.
You turn into my look and look
upon yourself dissolve into the mirror
of beholding, empty and fulfilled
So I recall you now, and now
is always there with us inside
a luminous departure we adorn:
this October light, this view,
this town, Room 502,
refuge for the unborn
version: December 2, 2008
lunar occultation of Venus,
Reed Valley, Gaucin, Andalucia
