The Beloved and the Bride Awaken

the dawn...
(part 2)

Deu 32:10
He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.


A funny thing: survival prayers.
If such a prayer be genuine,
the answering of it is hardly acknowledged
as divine intervention--
not right away.

Such was the case for the dying warrior-to-be.
When he found a tiny pool, his first thought was:
get low.
And with his face to the water
he lapped its life down his parched throat.
Then he rested, while waters diffused
throughout his flagging flesh,
He lapped again, and rested flat
his back cushioned against soft warm sands
as the air turned cool
and the the day gave way to night.

Then the moon herself
crept into his field of vision.

A standing man
regards the moon
from the position of one subservient,
scrutinizing her
from beneath his brows.
But
from this vantage point
flat on his back,
she is to his gaze,
as an equal.

The warrior considered her thus,
"What is your secret, O Moon?"
he asked.
But she had fallen silent.
You are so far up in the sky,
how is it you are nevertheless held in this place?
Was the old man doddering of mind
as well as body?"
Silently, she continued to creep
too slowly to measure with the eye,
but he knew...before long
she would hide again, ever waxing and waning
as was her way.
"Foolishness," he grunted
as he rolled over, turning his face with the intent
to drink again;
rolled away from her
and found her again.
Found her waiting in the water.
And like a key that finds its lock and turns
to throw open a door
that never wanted to be shut,
so the old man's secret was exposed.
The warrior's head shot up,
and his eyes became the eyes of a hawk.
Just a littledistance, he saw a glimmer.
And where at first the moon had been one,
soon she became many.
On pool after pool her gleam lighted,
like a butterfly
upon the still waters.
"In the place
where the desert holds the moon
you'll be near,"
said the old man.

Suddenly, to loll about
was ludicrous.
Though it was night
and the time of sleeping,
it was also the time of the moon glow.
So he shouldered his pack
and began to follow the pools,
pools in the desert
that led to the dawn.