Prized Paradise

Word from dream, the act of becoming, then woman From Eve to Anat, the rib dribbled on the sand Love and worship from dust of conviction life's promise claimed And we from altar to grave turned, wounded and maimed What is left but the pouring of desire, the moon Exciting the fragile heart, the grateful ruin. I have seen the Greek King's eyes Helen strucked and sad Heard blind Samson cried, and for death saw he was glad It was God first who made metaphor of the race And put upon the world a woman's charm and face So all men somewhere because of women shall die Hence worship too appeases terror from the eye. Leave them alone, leave them alone, our texts and dreams The pondering and plunder of blind mythic schemes Read here curving like hip of mountain, sweet as lips The fountain of history where the gospel drips The triumvirate of pagans, the fawn led trek The safe sundering tree, and God's wounded love dissect I have felt the deep core yearning for her embrace Have longed to feel the white moon suckle on my face Have groaned through nights like deserts melting the wax pore And you cannot stain my desire with stigmaed whore It is not a fertility cult that I chase But a command to bring forth he designed in place Some doctrine new this shame to replenish the garden And make countless the numbers on shores of heaven This other gospel enthralled a pagan race, tempt Their women abdicate role and place, none exempt Now, the tarnishing is done, I come not nude then Who call her first mother, and sister, wife and friend I bring no flowers for denial, since I drain Dregs of human longing and sleep in webs of pain Mother Mary too knew she bore her God to die On her cross for sins she had since Eve had supply Diminishless, O but not the pant and shudder Not the ecstacy that feeds the mythic fodder Astarte who grind day to crimson terminus And led light frazzled the rebellion of dust Unwombed no eggs, her virgins dry as furnaced stones Kept all posterity in their shivering bones To taste the pleasure and not the pain, not my will For all who love cannot regret again the thrill Let pagan kingdoms twist earth's history, I wait The coming of the moon unwrapped from clouds, the late Swelling of tides, and vigour of blood, proof of joy For nothing else compensates our purpose and coy Inheritance of the earth. Only in women's eyes I find, some semblance of the promised, prized paradise