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Saturday, April 7, 2012

PASSION


Calice du sacre Tau - WikiCommons



Calice du sacre Tau - WikiCommons


Let me taste you
Acrid in your hidden places
Let me know your bitterness through
Silken fluids you radiate in a span of colors--
That aurora of sparkling jewels-peridots, topaz, and amber
Dazzles me like dripping diamonds, rubies.

                    Drink the cup of bitterness because you know me
                    Take it for my salvation
                    Dazzling in the light of evening
                    Through my tears  I taste your body and I drink your blood
                    Rubies hang from sharp thorns and diamonds from your brow.

Let me smell your flesh as it embraces
The mixtures and perfumes of your sea-formed
Land-found self.  Its fragrance ebbing with the moon or reaching for the sun.
Flowers of musk, silken hair with smells of trees and new mown hay
It takes me to the edge of childhood and excites my memory.

                   Like the lambs and goats you smell of spring
                  Of new things emerging out of winter darkness
                  Radiant in the light of the Father; I hope for my forgiveness.
                  I smell the trees fragrant with blooms as we wave branches,
                  Singing Hosanna at your return.

Let me touch your skin that covers your beating pulse
That rhythm of you, unique within the universe.
Balanced in your music, grace and beauty
Marking time and moving you light and timeless
Through the brilliant working day and the rose scented night--
A flower-pedal ballet that moves across a rippling muscled sea.

                 The woven robe dyes red with your flowing blood
                 While your heart pounds its final measures.  I watch you struggle
                 With all your strength carrying my weight along with the killing tree.
                 You bend beneath the moon and ache beneath the sun.
                 They've bruised and stripped and torn your precious skin.
                 Yet you love them as you love me.

Let me hear your voice, warm as brandy wine,
Full, yet soft with tender feeling, say my name with lush emotion.
Sing me lullabies, croon to me when I cry, whisper secrets when
We're alone.  Tease me with your wit; thrill me with your tender glances.
Speak our history in your gestures; paint our fabled future with your words.

               Oh, my great God does it take this to give me freedom?
               Can it be worth this great price?  My beloved no one knows
               No one thinks what I do.  Conserve yourself, save you!
               Don't try to speak...You give it up for me...trading your sweetness
               That I may hear your voice once again beyond this life.

Let me see your eyes--the light of all my life.
Through them I first found my answers; then your answers.
Mirrors to my soul and pathway to your heart.
Never shade them or deny their honest pleading,
Amused reading, or angry needing.
See me as I share the love we learned together
Through a lifetime of desire.

               Your eyes close and I must search for the Light of the world
               In other things--reflections in a waterfall,
               The flight of a dove, petals unfolding on a rose.
               I hold the hope of the grail;
               I reach inside myself inspired by your sacrifice--
               To get the best from within me and give it back to you.
               See me as I learn your love anew as once again I start to fall.


                     © Gay Reiser Cannon *  All Rights Reserved * 4.7.12


36 comments:

  1. gosh gay...this is gorgeous...some beautiful worship in there...esp the sentiments there at th end...lvoe the kinda call and response set up you have in this as well...

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  2. this is a gorgeous, open-hearted piece, Gay. My post is in stark contrast, as it were. I've been where you are in this work, but I trust it all no longer. Love, j

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  3. Thank you Brian and Jen. It is what it is.

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  4. i wish i could search for the heart of the world, and find it, and just make the juices flow so all evil and injustice were gone

    black tailed fliers

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    1. I would join you if we could. That might be the true meaning of salvation - if we would or could all decide at once to pull together and "just do it". THey all cry "peace" and there is no "peace".

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  5. oh wow gay...this leaves me just speechless...See me as I learn your love anew as once again I start to fall....we have to learn this all over again...

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    1. Same here, speechless that is... Beautiful! And your poem evocates so many different sights and smells... gorgeous just like the pictures!

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  6. This is beautiful! I feel like I have just eavesdropped on a meditative conversation! Loved the two different voices.

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  7. Really beautiful, Gay, and perfect for Easter... gives me chills. Happy Easter.

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  8. I've always thought about how the Latin root of passion is passio, "to be nailed": passion nails us to this world tree, to our live, and its bittersweetness is a chalice overspilling with longing and loneliness. A grail: the crystal bed we find once a life, one amid all our loves perhaps, or quest our lives for never quite finding it. Here there are two dimensions of that song, the one living and the other transfigured, using the Easter myth to ramp up love to infinity. It's like a 2-D conversation between a lover and her mortal and immortal beloveds. As a fellow selkie, I loved that "sea-formed / Land-found self." Amen. - Brendan

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  9. You pretty much "nailed" the poem B. This was meant to set the song of a lover in juxtaposition to the message of love, sacrifice and redemption. I figured any "authoritative body" would definitely find it sacrilegious. But they felt the same way about S. John the Divine. Thank you for sensitive explication. G.

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  10. I read this earlier this morning and retweeted it on Twitter. What a glorious poem, so rich in emotion and detail, evoking so many feelings that I have identified with in the past, though I am not a member of any church at this time. The beauty of your faith is so compelling, and the closeness with Jesus is simply astonishing. That closeness with a being who gives life, while he has suffered so much is a lesson I hope I never forget. Thank you for posting this confession of faith, and meditation on the meaning of the Passion and the Mass. Beautiful writing.

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  11. Well I'm just laying my pen down and bowing to you Mz. Poetess! Gay, this is brilliance...perfectly presented.

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  12. To everyone: I am humbled by your comments. Thank you.

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  13. A wonderful and very fitting prayer/entreaty to a wonderful, and very special man.

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  14. Almost like a song of solomon. Beautiful. Very impressive. And not just fitting for Easter, but a poem that should be read always. Thanks for touching my spirit.

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  15. Lovely song and love poem, both sensual and divine. K.

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  16. This is a Tour de force, and so fitting to use the grail. The sea background, all conspiring to make it an outstanding page surrounding your beautiful words. Something to be proud of for a long long time.

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  17. I love it, I've read it three times now. I lost my dog to cancer this week and am now suffering from, among other things, a lack of eloquence. Please do not let this damper your reception of my deep respect for your work. This poem is now inscribed on my heart.

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  18. I bow down to the skill and eyes of the poet ~ This is beautiful Gay...I am filled with beautiful images of love and passion in the most spiritual way.

    Wishing you Happy Easter~

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  19. Glorious invocation of peace and renewal

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  20. It was visually awesome, and I just loved it. Period.
    http://leah-jamielynn.typepad.com

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  21. This is really something, Gay! Enjoyed the great moments of appreciating a long verse. A prayer of sorts, it is invigorating and mesmerizing!

    Hank

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  22. This made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck Gay! I think true salvation comes from unconditional love, kindness, generosity and sacrifice for the good of others x

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  23. So complete and filled with passion. Check out a child's perspective of the day: http://wolfsrosebud.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/a-childs-easter-poem/

    Happy Easter!

    Truly my favorite lines:

    "The woven robe dyes red with your flowing blood
    While your heart pounds its final measures. I watch you struggle
    With all your strength carrying my weight along with the killing tree.
    You bend beneath the moon and ache beneath the sun.
    They've bruised and stripped and torn your precious skin.
    Yet you love them as you love me."

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  24. And the cycle continues, doesn't it?
    Wonderful, wonderful. Very compelling.

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  25. And the cycle continues, doesn't it?
    Wonderful, wonderful. Very compelling.

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  26. A beautiful and awe inspiring tribute for Easter. Thank you for your well crafted words.

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  27. Wow...gosh, indeed....such a beautiful poem....just awesome!

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  28. This is such a joyous, glorious, luminous poem to mark the Easter season. Filled with the spiritual intensity and pyrotechnic poetics of Eliot's later poems, this is a celebratory triumph.

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    1. Thank you Sam. I've never read Eliot's later poems. I understand he was very moved by the string trios and quartets of Beethoven. I've meant to read them for years; however, "way led on to way". I appreciate the comparison. Heady stuff to be compared to a modern "GREAT".

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  29. Some things are sent from outside us, are written through us. This came through me as though I were only an instrument.

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  30. A beautiful duet. Holding the Easter Passion, and beyond. Thank you.

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  31. The depth of your faith and your own passion is immense. This poem was EPIC- so full of religious imagery and Christ's pain and all of the chalices and robes and thorns that it just blew my mind. This poem shows how your religion permeates everything- the sea, the sky, love, life- as in 'god is everywhere' and all seeing. You could just feel that this was spilled straight from your heart- a very thoughtful, personal, and powerful piece of writing.

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  32. Thank you Stu - I appreciate your comments and feel they are straight from your heart.

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