Nui silein
nui sacréi
hei porte
su aigles e'arkln.
e'Laoche hon loien
e'deau da om'homidus
hei resuals
aven hos wiis'mur.
Alo, ado, ajoris.
edoris, aloris, riehom.
Ré'hareii.
Ré'speon.
Ciel'n dédeth.
Ciel'n tilae'umoom.
Che'edus hei vers
étinpex.
There is something ethereal about the pearl-white of the moonlight on your skin. It pours through the window, cross-hatched by the diamond panes, making a mosaic of your body, warmed by your heartbeat, embraced by cool night air. In three days the moon will be full. The liquid luminescence of her face will shine more blue-white than pearl, but your skin, like roses and cream, will be the same contrast, warmth wrapped in cool, as it is tonight.
Your eyes have stopped moving beneath your lids. Your lashes, golden brown, feathers against your cheeks, are still. When I lift a strand of hair over your shoulder I am stunned by the tangible tenderness I feel for you. Holding this ribbon of silk, an awareness of your fragility is flooded away by the startling presence of your passion, and this, like a smooth stone in my palm, becomes my personal stigmata. In this moment, I am lost and found, ended and begun, all at once. I have no illusions of my redemption in the eyes of man. I have already ascended just to be allowed to lie here beside you. This holy trinity: word, prayer and touch. Each carefully balanced, measured and weighed, sacred things seeded by faith.
Somewhere beyond the window glass and the sharp iron scent of the fire escape, someone is walking alone down the street. The steady, almost urgent and certainly purposeful rhythm of boots on concrete matches the staccato of my heart. I dare not wake you but the trembling in my breath pulls me toward risk. I dip my fingertips into moonlight. They pass through cool, living night and discover your skin, warm and soft as sky. I trace the edges of light like the coastlines on a fine map. These planes and hollows at the nape of your neck, the curve of your ribs, the valley of your spine, they are each regions marked in light and shadow, continents of desire.
The texture of your skin is almost impossibly smooth, silk canvas over the warm clay of your muscles, taut even in sleep; your body, equally formed from the base elements of prowess and creation. You shift, turning from side to stomach and the plum-colored sheet falls from your shoulders; they are clothed now only in the geography of moonlight.
I stroke my fingers and palm across lines of latitude and longitude. East to West and then North, lingering in that place that all poets do, those blades of bones once hosts to wings. I close my eyes and feel my breath catch in my throat. It has become a familiar feeling. Even in sleep, you are arresting. You hold my attention completely—in stillness, in work, in text, in whispers, in promises and gasps, which are, of course, one and the same. I cannot lift my hand from you. Live wire, lifeline, talisman. Muse, lover, angel.
I open my eyes. I wonder: Is it your burden to carry this moonlight? Is it heavy? Do you grow weary? Do you dream of sunlight kissing your face, of a caress golden with divinity, standing in light that everyone can see? If you must be burdened with this love, would you rather it be as sunlight, poured down across your shoulders, worn like a resplendent cloak, swirling about your warrior’s frame beneath a bright blue sky? Would you rather lift your face to the heavens than turn your cheek to mine in the midnight hour?
This night seems endless and perfect. Surreal. The quintessential night. The breeze strong enough to rustle but not part lace curtains. The crisp air slowly filling the room, carrying away the clean sweat of our love making, the scent of my perfume, the questions unasked and unanswered.
As so often in these moments, when it seems the rest of the world slumbers and I am left a lone soul, quiet and small, I think of Atlas and so, of Christ, carrying their burdens—Atlas the world, Christ our salvation. I feel for one minute, one lifetime, one sometime in between, the enormity of those burdens, Christ’s heavier by far for the knowledge that even after the cross was laid down and His mortal body was laid to rest, His task was just beginning. One on one with Him we must choose to accept or deny His labor. And therein He finds rapture and heartbreak. Love, loss and salvation. There, on Christ’s shoulders, rests both moonlight and divinity. Both starfield and blue sky.
And it is a long time still until dawn when I lift my hand from your skin, rise without noise and go to my father’s desk, where an olive wood fountain pen and rich linen paper become tool and fallow field for this letter to you. I think you'll know what I'm asking. I have asked it before and most surely will again. These choices are always here. Paths and possibilities. They are not black or white. Right or wrong. They are moonlight or sunlight and both are made by Christ's own hand.
We always have choices. And often, perhaps more often than hubris cares we admit, they can be made, and unmade, again and again. If indecision is a sin (and a grievous one) than let us always remember that free will -- a warrior's will -- is both blue sky and starfield, both pearl disc and golden orb. Our will, which is that tapestry woven with the golden thread of faith in Christ and faith in ourselves, is and forever will be divine.
EJ
