In the moments just before ink marks the page I know that words will fall short. For who could capture Her with mere paper and ink? But I am compelled to try hoping that my attempt, though clumsy and sophomoric, may in some small way reflect back the beauty that I have recognized in Her.
She is new to me, yet I have known her forever. Even so I have just begun to experience, to comprehend Her. She has captured my attention and stirred longings thought bruised beyond rising. It is now Her face I seek, Her call that I await. And in the between times I remember, I wonder, I muse.
I remember Her form, Her fragrance, the way She fits my body. I wonder how it is that she has so easily assumed this place with me. I muse about the meaning of this dance begun between she and I.
With Me she is familiar. She is bold but not brazen. Her confidence is that of assumed kinship and intimacy. How is it that She feels like Home? How is it that a raging passion and peaceful sweet rest can co-exist?
She is dainty yet powerful. I have watched a dull room energized at Her approach. Men straighten themselves in hopeful anticipation of Her glance or smile, grateful for any small attention. Women appraise Her, hoping for an ally, dreading competition with Her light.
Her smile is a magic thing. It is infectious and sensual. Her mouth shaped in anger is pouty and full beneath a furrowed brow.
Her movement is fluid and natural as a young doe. She is at ease and alert. She is finely wrought and utterly feminine, Her spirit at home in Her flesh.
To be near Her awakens slumbering passion. To be apart calls forth the Poet, the Bard. She now has claimed Her place in His story. She is now set apart. Sleeping Beauty can now awaken, at least for the moments that the Poet can guard Her heart.
But harken to me! It is a dangerous thing to call forth the Poet and awaken the Princess. The story will unfold with many unseen twists and turns. Exquisite will be the rapture. Exquisite will be the torment. Yet that is the nature of the play. Both comedy and tragedy are required. Such things are always risky. But perhaps the Poet and his Muse can create between them a place where the songs can live.
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.
They are of me, yet profoundly Other than me.
Their dependence decreases, moment by moment, choice by choice, as personality and character coalesces. Soul becomes known. Small round bodies, unsure, become angular, strong and elegant.
Hints of the ancestors glimpsed, reflected in appearance,
posture, and mannerism.
Shadows of their mother and I emerge as different facets turn,
reflected in the light of their living.
See the man arise beneath the surface of the boy.
Hints of the woman foreshadowed in the girl.
Each unique and other worldly as a snowflake,
yet familiar as my own breath.
I am startled to recognize their autonomy –
their separateness from me.
And in that sacred space between the roles we play out in Time, flashes of their glory leave me awed.
They are my equal yet better than I.
Recognition of their immortality, the deity inherent in their volition saddens, yet brings strange comfort. I grieve the blow to my ego.
I have much less dominion over them than I imagine,
yet I am greatly more important to them than I know.
They are neither damned by my weakness
nor necessarily elevated by my substance.
They are free and I am humbled.
I am Daddy to these three souls, at least for now.
And within the bandage of Time they are to me what they can be to no other and I am to them what no other can be.
While inhabiting the boundaries of this dressing we play out appointed roles.
Yet in Eternity we will have had and shall ever be One.
They have eyes of blue and hearts of gold.
Those have been and will ever be constant through the metamorphosis of flesh, circumstance, and experience.
Those same eyes which gazed up to me at the dawn of their journey will look down upon me at the ending of mine.
And yet our hope holds fast that when Time is finally swallowed by Eternity we will then know as we have been known.
We will recognize and finally comprehend the glory
of the everlasting souls with which we have journeyed.
Hearts pure, refined, and utterly alive.
Then together we can all play once more in the presence of the One who has watched over us all.
