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At The End Of A Busy Day
You and I might think them to be only
a pair of adolescents who, stupidly,
relinquished utmost ease and delight
for common, sometimes difficult, drudgery.
We should not judge, lest we be judged,
nor ascribe to ourselves some superior evolution
that has advanced us in time, achievement and wisdom.
After long hours hunting and gathering,
he returned to the new home-place,
and wondered how it always looked so good,
despite being so small, so barely furnished,
nothing really to boast about
(they both know the time of boasting is long past),
but always a faithful refuge from the world,
a beckoning rest through the hours of night
before the next day's dawn and its many chores.
Out there, beyond the entrance, remains
a ravening plethora of familiar frustrations
(their own fault, really, they both admit).
But here, as he turns away from all that,
is the smile she has only for him,
the warmth of the fire and a meal already prepared.
They put off the animal skins they wear to eat.
Afterward, fed and nakedly cuddled,
they speak of the small and humble in quiet voices;
leaving unspoken the heartrending remembrance
of offered largess and arrogance of impatient presumption.
Thought moves forward; her eyes sparkle like starlight
as she tells him tonight is his to relax.
Intimate knowledge animates
her lips and hands, her breasts aroused, and her feet,
the sum of her bared beauty brought to bear upon his pleasure,
coaxing him from exhaustion to exhilaration.
Her gaze fixed upon his without interruption,
she mounts him, desire upon desire,
enveloping, enfolding, clasping, drawing
(stroke by stroke) them both to that moment when flesh reveals
the soul it encloses, a momentary glimpse of glory,
when they both moan as love's satisfaction bursts forth.
Down by degrees they come, embracing in tangle
of limbs and long hair, and deep sleep not far away now.
She will be the Mother of all the living;
already the Muse of all his loving.
And then he hears that still small voice again---
(friendly, courteous, discrete, never intrusive;
unlike the serpent's hiss he has come to know)---
its echo and a question kindly asked,
"You, who have named so much and named it well,
"what name will you give to this, what shall it be?"
Thus nominated was Love's poetry.
Starward
[jlc]
