Manifestations of Love (D-S60-61)
In the bones and blood
of a lover are the signs
of the one he loves –
and inside that.
He feels her in his veins,
as if the Moon had carved
its signature in his blood –
as if a form of Venus,
scintillating in the evening
sky, had run a current
through his limbs –
Is she really, like an houri,
a descendant of the stars?
Or is this what human beings are –
this blinding body beauty?
In reality the one I love
is born of neither earth nor sky –
Every day her beauty deepens;
every day I’m further saddened.
She’s closer to me than I am
to myself, so close I don’t know
where she is at all –
Like attracts like.
Knowledge has intimate
relations with knowledge,
reason with reason.
So me,
I wander like Majnun,
helpless and accustomed
to the desert.
There’s a kind of guy
who roars like a lion
wanting just to see
his girlfriend’s face
when she’s away.
Another trembles with anxiety
every time he pictures
her hair.
Another can’t stop thinking
of her smooth round breasts –
so helpless that at dinner
when he touches an apple
he’s reminded of them,
and to everyone’s
embarrassment,
including his,
he starts
describing them!
And yet another rants so loud
about her leaving for the weekend,
you’d think he thinks we’re deaf –
To him, the mills of time
are grinding out a cosmic
prison term – they scrape
so loud his voice
seems faint,
to him,
who’s losing her.
Neither earth- nor sky-born,
but above all that, the one
I love’s compassionate,
like the widows’ husband –
comprehends the evidence
of things unseen –
a candle flame unmoved
by wind or breath, or time –
I am the lover.
My beloved
is the ocean –
and Mazun,
a fish in endless seas.
