You Are Mine: A Christmas Reflection

Song of Songs, Marc Chagall

Arise, my beloved, my dove,

my beautiful one, and come!

For see, the winter is past,

the rains are over and gone. . . 

Let me see you, 

let me hear your voice,

for your voice is sweet,

and you are lovely! 

—Song of Songs

For a fleeting moment this morning, I felt you, vast 
and penetrating in your love, smiling broadly 
as if all my sorrows were naught. It was not a mocking 
disregard but a humorous dissolution of all the surfacing 
irritations and disappointments, as if to say:

In my Love, all is well, all is joy, all is peace.

Had you come back to me then?

Had you returned?

Had you stormed my dusty manger so unfit

for one as magnificent as You? 
And yet—you loathe artifice. 
Rather you would lie here with me in the dirt, eking a smile 
out of one so determined to be sad.

(Written at New Camaldoli Hermitage,
Big Sur, 2011)