The Ocean Within Her

She went out today
radiant in the light of the sun
his hands labored to plant
inside of her,
her body a forest
burning with the desire
that gave the stars their light,
her breasts
a spring heaving
in countless red moans,
on her lips and skin
the indelible wine of his kisses
seethed like a velvet cloud of incense
permeating with its fervent aroma
the inside of her bones.

The ocean of his poetry was within her
and the ocean could not be contained,
it flowed and overflowed
as she moved like a fountain,
a cup flooding with the primal source,
the liquid that gave love its reputation,
the blessed light
upon which time in vain
would try his teeth and moan,
vanquished! vanquished!
a rain of jasmines
falling from her hair
and calling the world
to come and drink
and again be whole.

Letter, January 31, 2016

Your breath emanates my poem — given what poetry is to me, do you realize the depth of that image? Oh, how your breath lives in me! But, to me, poetry is so much more than this beat pulsing in my heart; poetry is the very substance of life, the interiority of it weaving its forms and outer shells. Poetry is the essence — and you, the essence of that essence. I am dizzy feeling this intuition, contemplating it, allowing it to take and overtake me. But deeper than the intoxication with which it floods my veins this intuition and image fills me with clarity as a dawn like calmness submerges and raises me to a sky hitherto unknown. I live at the root from which the world and existence draw substance and life, from and into which everything flows and perishes and is reborn. Your breath, Beloved, emanates my poem, and doing so it annihilates me into you. What now remains of me? I do not know for you have filled me. I am now your overflow, the sheer beauty of your face spilling grace and emanating the world.

Creator of Light

To your riverbank
the sun, moon, and stars
flock to drink
and be born in light.
The nebula,
the primal dust
drank from your skin
and thus the first worlds were born,
and with them the first stars,
the possibility of life.
Color touches you
and whirls,
a Sufi gone mad,
a Sufi in love.
Color emanates
from the thickness of matter
and that emanation is you,
the inner radiance of the world
that keeps it throbbing
like a poem singing love.
Where a flame burns
its roots are struck in you,
rising from the wells
in the deeps of your heart,
burning in the grace
of your sacred oil.
You are the world’s
inexhaustible radiance,
the secret that confounds dawn,
that most solemn witness of light.
In you the world
is an infinite mandala
of light jumping into light,
light rubbing against light
as the principle that generates
the radiance of existence,
the purity of love.