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Love in the Water, Love in the Stone


Faithful bean lady of the plantain,
your tubular beads surround my voice.
You bring me a berry song so old
I hug the silences. You
embrace the silence and the clear light
on the track of your quest, to here.
I see now in that light myself
into the tangle of the river's bottom.


Knee-deep in another's bliss
I wake and find myself a stone
                                     at your lover's feet.
Then stone upon stone,
I rise into another's fire.
I touch your palm oil flesh
to light me from my cave.
And, if I rise, under your thunder,
into rain, I praise your touch.


Now, a life-long a laterite,
a rain of beads, palm kernel oil
stipulate my clipped time.
The earth weaves eight gold bridal veils
to cast into the sea. The moon
is up at noon to catch me naked,
drunk and dancing with a ram.
I use the loom of seasons so;
I abuse myself.
And, even if I leave you,
I marry your worship in my wife's voice.


I begin the decline of having you
                                               close;
your memories feed me.
These are my intolerable survivals.
And so I take my love's journey
from the language of your needs.
I mount my woman's earth smell
in the shadows of your ageless eyes.
I crawl to the altar of your thunderstones
and bleed for the bride whose blood
will fill my name.

Written by Jay Wright

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