The Storm on the Paper Desert

love come and gone

 

The Storm on the Paper Desert

 

 

As Bathsheba knelt in the temple 

To save her husband, 

David stood on his favorite hill, 

Watching the storm roll in,

Denying God.

                              David and Bathsheba

 

You lie at the bottom of my bed,

Covered in the silky splendor of

Soft satin rain drops and magic 

we have been mixing together—

The storm clouds move up

The length of your back, 

The breeze parts neatly from 

The softness of your laughter.

From where I am watching—your nakedness begins filling the room,

From where I’m standing your breasts are boldly on display, telling 

Poems and stories from a thousand years ago. 

You are all women 

You are sun, stars,

all answers to all questions

You are sculptured by the Almighty God,

Your body curled,

Rounded from your knees pulled forward,

I can not move away from this landscape before me,

I can not move away from the heart sounds

I can not move away from the sparkle of your eyes 

smiling like two paper moons,

the set appears before us like a pyramid on the Nile,

Paper desert,

Paper storm,

Paper lightning 

Wrapped around you, 

Life ghosts we had both drug 

Into this room 

Now lie slain upon the floor. 

 

The poet  

begins writing another poem,

the singer begins singing another song, 

The playwright begins writing another play. 

 

I pull you into my arms 

Calling you mine, 

Calling you from somewhere in another time, 

Using words and language that only we know between us,  

We are reading everything, 

Reading without books,

Kissing without lips,

Laughing without sound. 

 

We are walking across the desert together, 

We are swimming through seas of antiquity,

We are breathing each others air,

Holding up each others hearts with our hands,

Smiling, holding, kissing, sharing, and being.

 

As we make our way through act one, 

I am coming in from the desert 

Searching for you—

I have fasted and sought God for months. 

You are telling me stories about your life 

And I am laughing inside, 

I am trying not to proclaim you a prophecy 

I am trying to contain my joy, 

My irony, 

My feelings of longing. 

As you read your next line I am trying not to sob, 

I am pulling up images of you in this room, 

Where in a few weeks time 

a million words, feelings, 

And mysteries have been uncovered. 

 

Under the Desert becomes the name of our play, 

you tell me the story of Jesus through a screen door, 

And I tell you the story of how each rain drop contains 

The history of the earth—we were speaking in so many languages, 

So many words and meanings, 

We began wrapping ourselves in nakedness—pushing our 

Feelings to the farthest corners of each others’ souls, 

Biting and bouncing, 

Kissing and pulling each other inside, 

The storm clouds move across our bed 

Until we are exhausted—

To much, to much, 

Oh God! Oh God! Take away this pain..

 

How could it have ended any other way? 

 

 

RKS 2008