ISLAND ALTAR

               “…we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it.  We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.  We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.  For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”—Wendell Berry, A Native Hill

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               Her coffee waited when she rose making way to kitchen room and island in morning’s light.  Purl of steam in rise and cloud lit in as body in angled sun, sweetened and mellowed with coffee and cream he added and judged by tone-colored change drinking his own dark and black. 

               He heard her as she woke; shift of body in the sheets, waking breaths of deep and sweep in change from the soft-steady in still; her feet on the hardwood floor in rise and move that set his own to same; reach for pot under fall of green vined cover, preparing cup—warm and fresh—in welcome of her arrive.

               It was a simple act of love, habit and path of familiarity, that began day in with small and easy sign of consideration and affection. 

               He was joyful she was there—always. 

               She took coffee in hand, drank from the warmth.  She smiled to him and read hold of his own beside.  Eyes spoke and shone in a humility of spirit and she thought it strange—his oscillations and changes of strength and show—from their way of love and passion’s force, and too his gentleness and meekness that remained: reverent still, adoring, for all they shared and lived.  She loved him still—in all his shades and hues and ways of spirit that colored both their lives which ever more aligned and seemed nearer to single One.

               She faced the sun, morning’s gold, and she felt his eyes remain: trace and follow of her figure outlined and silhouetted in the radiance.  Natural, she was beautiful in sun; and as he had when she rose from bed; she smiled to sound of his changing breath, new-wake stir, affected in her presence. 

               She knew his thought.  She thought it too, desired as he did. 

               Creation-act: mystery and awe and reverence; worshipful in presence; gifted nakedness and spirit on island-altar before the sun. 

               She felt pang and sweep of swoon, cool line of sense in rise of spine then build of body’s heat; stir in affect as she held to coffee’s warmth with single hand, second tracing cleft and skin of upper breasts through loose of morning robe; listening to controlled and deepened heavy of his breath; restless and tension settled only in movement heat-force of slow, deep kiss; mouths and lips and tongues in match as hands set upon the other; moved and drawn and submitting full to rush and wave of spirit; adoring—mystery, awe, and reverence; worshipful in presence; love-Creation gift in offer and praise on island-alter before the sun.