Another Faith

Speak into the darkness
like a child praying.
Age does not lessen
your need for faith.

I don’t mean
blindly binding soul to dogma
or sacrificing intuition at devotion’s hands.

There is another faith
that lives beyond these,
waiting for you–
not on the mountain top of wonder
but beyond,

                    in valleys
deep with yew, oak and hazel,
moss, cress, mushroom and stone,
fine leg, hoof, snout, fin and tail,
hiding behind the mask of many.

It is faithful love
who dares look straight into the
Heart of God
and mist-melt into that morning sun, again and again.

To feast at the table of faith is
  but opening your mind
to human vulnerability, 

like fruit, long fermented.

Admit without shame:
you can never live 

  your own expectations.

Instead, faith is setting free
the subtle fear
that makes you believe
every other power but your own.

When you tread with faith
up the spiral milky Way,
you are a star in the night
a naked light without agenda
or any other feat but to
shine.

Only when the inner heat of longing
burns away the clothes
of what you thought you knew
and all the loves undeserving of you,

Only when there is nothing left
between body and darkness
can you make love,
skin to skin and breath to breath,
with the Heart in all hearts.

Only then does faith become
another word for “know.”

    

 

Sliabh na mBan

“Climb with me to the top”,
picking berries in autumnal sun,
warm and sticky, hot breathed wind
carries her promise of love.

We wend our way in curves,
dizzy with lust, that untamed bird,
leading us up the hill of pleasure,
shy but laughing, intending more.

I chase you, feet wild in pursuit,
rampant in my longing like
Grainne demanding of Diarmuid
unbreakable vows  … or else.

Tumbling, you fall, into the bosom
of the earth, a heather bed made
ready for two eager-mouthed youths,
our legs already a lover’s knot.

Not even the gods of this place,
could come between our bond,
as I share with you my fruit,
a marriage feast for two hearts.

Juice explodes in our mouths,
sweet hunger for more and more,
dripping with red-lipped desire
and stained by a heavy harvest.

We are two wild things, two
blackbirds starved to madness,
two waves rolling into the other,
as we heave our delight to heaven.

“Climb with me to the top”,
to the height of heady dreams,
where even Sliabh na mBan
becomes inflamed with our love.

Note: Sliabh na mBan is a place in Co. Tipperary, Ireland, where Grainne (one of the most beautiful women in Irish myth) fell in love with Diarmuid instead of her older and rather elderly betrothed Fionn (a bit like Trystan and Isyllt). It was traditional in both Ireland and Wales for young couples to go ‘berry picking’ in late summer, early autumn on the hillsides, but of course, it was also a euphemism for so much more! I know in Welsh, there is a close tie between the words for ’sex’ and for ‘hill’ (they are almost identical) showing how ancient the practice of lovemaking on hillsides was. It's still done too. :)