Dearest
love, listen: that first time I saw you I said, "she's the one!"
Dreamy eyes, neck like a doe's, fine waist I wanted to crush, breasts of
pomegranate, your hair twisted, turned like sea-swell.
Dearest
love, how kind love is, he made you my own. How sweet his honey, how perfect,
how right the consummation of our love!
And
I didn't even know who you were, who you really were. That came later. First
love tempts then puts out our eyes.
Don't
say you weren't warned: "Sweetheart, I want a tender tree, one that bends
to my will, a demure voice, a girl to obey and please me alone, who will make
her thoughts mine, who'll speak in my name, live in my shadow, pray to God as if
she were me, ready to die in my place." There: I told you so.
But what did you do?
You
got serious, you said, "We're
just the same after all: a
man and a woman. I don't need
Guarding, there is no difference
between us, you and I, just a man
and woman together in love." Can grass grow tall like a palm and still be
called grass?
Dearest
love, I warned you but you wouldn't listen: you rode the air, seeking wild
unconquered places, clambered up sheer pines, saddled Pagasus and flew away,
opened veins in the earth, looking for gold without me, you spoke and wrote in
your name, not mine, can that be?
Dearest
love, your madness drove God mad. His stars dim, lightning blanches, wind faints
at your feats of dewing-do, lady, there's no woman among us who wants to do what
you do and talks like a man!*
Who
am I? You opened doors beyond my reach, rushed out furious into the world (and
to think just yesterday . you peeped out through the cracks in the harem wall).
Dearest
love, I was caught in a whirlpool and almost drowned; I saw your beauteous face
calling me from all the cities of the world, but when I turned to follow
love
was shouted down by voices-booming from my father's grave in the courtyard where
their spirit lies un-quietly buried; You never stopped calling; the screams from
the past never let up. The moment of choice had come.
I
took a second wife for my hands to handle, to make their own, who hears and
obeys without a murmur, who knows how to put the muttering grave to sleep. Dear,
the lovely music we make, she and I together! My thought rules her, we are truly
one flesh: one body and one mind.
And
you dearest love, I sowed in the wind, scattered your blood in infinite
distance, crippled your flesh from afar (and see, my hand's as white as it
ever was, like driven snow). I drove the loud, lovely words back down your
throat and smothered them, I held you longingly sweep picture of innocence, in
my arms: no speaking, thinking, feeling, choosing, acting: no coming or going.
No there is nothing you can do., dearest love.
* Who am I? your wasp-waisted sweetheart? the mere possession of your hands