Book of Light and Shadows

It's all because I have a puckish side that will not be denied...

Most Like an Arch
this Marriage
-by John Ciardi

Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds
And shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.

Most like an arch - two weaknesses that lean
Into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
Naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
What's strong and separate falters. All I do
At piling stone on stone apart from you
Is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss

I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
The all-bearing point, for one another's sake,
In faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

~You are not the first to take my breath away, but you are the first to give it back~

Looking for Your Face
-by Rumi

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it.

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

Today I have found you
and those that laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did.

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you with a hundred eyes.

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold.

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine.

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow.

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky.

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light
and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts
mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

So Are You to Me
-by Eastmountainsouth

As the music at the banquet
As the wine before the meal
As the firelight in the night
So are you to me

As the ruby in the setting
As the fruit upon the tree
As the wind blows over the plains
So are you to me

As the wind blows over the plains
So are you to me
So are you to me