Tree of Life

Lust gets a bad rap in the Bible 

with its focus on forbidding

a controlling and compelling need

to have this woman or that thing,

demanding satisfaction right this minute.

But every negative that hides from light

can be turned over, glorified, revealed

to be a gift. The Garden hummed with

lusty procreation. Likely also did the Ark.

The Song of Songs with all its palm tree

climbing and those sacs of myrrh between the breasts

are not just metaphors, you know.

Desire fulfilled (a sweeter name for lust)

is in there too, producing not just momentary

pleasure, but a tree of life that grows

and goes through seasons, giving shelter

from the storms of life, off'ring shade when

we are weary, branches we can play on,

swinging limb to limb with monkey love.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2022

On this April 30 I was thinking of Lerner and Loewe's song "The Lusty Month of May" and this is what happened.

Missing Someone Never Met

She misses him,

"Wide Brimmed Hat"
by Polish artist Tamara De Lempicka,
1933

the man she thought
that he'd become, if given
time (she gave that, and
much more), a man who truly
loved her to his very core, who
yearned for understanding of
each cell, each nook and
cranny of her intellect, her
laughter, smile, the mole there
on her back a thing of wonder
just because she wears it well.
He'd tell you that he loves her,
as he tells her now and then if
something in her eyes breaks
through the barriers and frightens
him. It's clear his definition is as far
from hers as Now is far from Then,
back when she fell in love, not
with a man, but with the man
she thought that he'd become
but never did. She misses someone
met in dreams, in tearful prayers,
time wasted on a spectral lover
who was never real.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015