We fell asleep in the checkered field
outside of our cedar cottage last night.
Jehovah reanimates our bodies baptized with dew
as His merciful sunrays pull back our quilt
made of the pastoral fragments
that we gathered on our anniversary.
My wedded muse who submitted
on the morning of Christ's Nativity
yawns as my right arm eases her close.
Arising in slow motion, we bathe in the Alph river
and playfully push invigorating waves on each other.
She ascends to the bank and combs her wet locks
with a stray sylvan branch as they drape
over her sacred shoulders like black silk.

After the spring breeze dries our flesh,
we dress ourselves in lyrical ballads
and walk through the countryside while holding hands.
Larks chirp their aurora hymns as we duet verses
from "This Is My Father's World."
I mention themes from Ecclesiastes Two,
and she links the ruins of Ozymadias's kingdom
with the inevitable thanatopsis of princes and peasants.
Her spikenard perfume swirls like morning mist
around laurel reeds, teasing me to stop
and smell the rhythms beating in human hearts
that seek to make sense out of their fallen surroundings.
I breathe her warm mocha skin
blessed with a splash of golden caramel.
She giggles as I stir her imagination
with a spoonful of sugar, frankincense and myrrh.

As we picnic on Cloud Nine and read
about Paul's visit to the third Heaven,
dancing daffodils perform for us below.
Showing our gratitude, we sprinkle breadcrumbs
over the side into the river, not knowing
where God's manna will finally reach.
We will discover it after many days
since His hand guides the current.
Following our feast in the firmaments,
we leave carefree footprints
along the pathways of breezes
traveling from Scotland to Ghana.
I lean towars her Duval ear
and whisper Baudelaire lines
to design our time as bold lovers
suspended between the seconds
before we kiss on a Grecian landscape
teeming with melodies of revival.

Evening crowds at French cafes
watch our focused dialogue
and notice the captured twinkle
in my eye, revealing my intentions
to father devotions and sermons with her.
Arriving home, we dance cheek to cheek
over cypress leaves decorating our porch.
A camouflaged orchestra of crickets
rub their skilled legs together
like soothing cello strings translating
seductive songs from moonbeams.

Jeremiah's flame generates my bosom
like the fireplace casting matrimony shadows
laying a red, red rose on each pillow.
Expecting me to share my soul
in private candlelit stanzas just as much
as at public Areopagus open mics,
she loosens her fringed gentian robe
selected from her cabinet of velvet villanelles
and see-through sapphire satin sonnets.
She calls me her "mortal Apollo"
who woos her with the Nicene creed.
I vow to study her into the night
like Malcolm after "lights out."
I want to love her with curious fingers,
a Cyrano intellect and a sacrificial heart
experiencing her complex rhythms
and curvaceous forms which floor me
like a sledge or when a man loves a woman.
Thank God that I can't keep my mind
on nothing else.

* based on Maud Sulter's photograph "Calliope" (1989)
from the Zabat series; see the book BLACK ART:
A CULTURAL HISTORY by Richard J. Powell


Copyright 2004. Streetlight Publications.