This is what I ask you to imagine:

 

The moment it begins, beneath the object of her demise.

Rising from her lover, separation into perfection.

 

The first question arises, the ripeness of the fruit is its answer.

 

Wandering the fields, hands brushing the tips of tall grass,

naming things, the fullness on the limb begging questions.

 

Fruit on the ground, fruit on the limb, truth, freedom,

wait to be grasped.

 

Yearning interlaces with the tedium of useless rain.

 

As their bodies brown beneath the revealing sun

the secret question draws him deeper into the embrace she

imagines in the small space within her mind, where there is

a thought about what perfection does to the soul.

 

Then he names it, and they see freedom in the life that surrounds them.

Then he lifts her in his arms, above his head and discovers the unbearable

lightness of her body and he names it desire. But the question still hangs in

the air and together they name it doubt, its counterweight they name prayer.

 

Once again he lifts her, to stretch her limb to the fruit of the limb, an end to

doubt, an answer to prayer, the end of perfection, the beginning of shame,

the discovery of pleasure, and a return to flesh as if from a ghostly existence.

 

Perfection exposed to error. A new reason to seek out light, with the shadow

of imperfection across their eyes the sun reveals answers, and the moon

dark secrets in the night.

 

The fields take on new meaning. Softness hardens to labor. Independence

grows from furrowed ground, new life hard won from pain.

 

Yearning now interlaces with the coming rain, doubt and prayer; and when

the heavens open, he holds out his limbs, and she drinks with sweet release

from the cup of his calloused hands.

 

 Painting Creation of Eve by Bartolo De Fredi

 

 

Open link night at the Bar