Beloved and the Bride...sanctified (an epilogue)

In the end, the man who found the moon in the desert
remained with the boy, so he grew
in stature and mysterious wisdom
over the years.

The man who found the moon in the desert
remained in the land of perpetual autumn
and now, too, of moonless nights.
No one in the village thought it strange that the moon had
disappeared--
no one but him.

Sometimes he looked out across the woodland
where she had taken him walking--
he looked out from the high gabled windows
of that house couched in the hills,
the house where she'd lived
and where he now tended the boy.

If he were not locked into the boy's life
and the days of moonless autumn,
he might have been able to see her
even still.

Many were days,
when she had gone, in life, into that forest alone,
and met her Beloved--
but unbeknownst to all those folk
who lived near those woods.
And these visits renewed her,
her faith, her vision, her hope, her strength.

There like young lovers, they played
hide and seek among the trees.
She always seeking him;
he always being found
and at just the right moment in the game.

Somewhere in the dark place she remembered the game,
and so she knew right where to look,
to find the tree where he hid
even in that black tangle.
Now, for her, the memory of that dark place--it was vague,
but she knew it was true,
for she found herself once more
playing hide and seek.
Except that now, her part was changed.

Suddenly, this newer new creature knew a new thing:
and so she darted behind a tree,
only to discover her Beloved
hiding stalk-straight
behind an adjacent one.

"So, do I get to hide now, too?" she asked playfully.
And her eyes gleamed silver,
shot through with the beams that the now-dark moon
had given as offering.

The Beloved laughed
the laugh of a belly satisfied with good results
of a throat open with relaxed joy
of a life well lived and finding ever more
the hope and the future.

If the man who escaped the dragon
had not been committed to the boy
and to the land of moonless autumn,
he might have been able to see them
darting
playing.


But, unseeing did not matter.
For in his heart, he knew lived:
lived and played in those woods.

He knew, all the more as his peripheral vision
was groomed to gaze with frequency
not on singulara trees
whose life would span from sapling to pulp
and be ended and forgotten and replaced
by yet a new sapling;
maybe of the same nature, maybe different.
No, association with the boy
and residency in the house of the woman,
these taught him to cast his gaze
on the forest at large
where he would see
a creation timeless and enduring.
A creation now,
so full of joy
that it could hardly hide its fire,
as its patient awaiting
for such groundskeepers as these lovers
was finally rewarded.