TENARAMENTE

I stand at the boundary. On this side, familiar
terrain. Hills like lyric waves brushed with sage, dew
an aria on my tongue, golden wedge of light on my
elbow. My arms know precisely my baby’s
milky weight, his warm mouth loose against my
breast, my nipple cooling in this lambent dawn.
Moss fur nuzzles the soles of my feet.

This is the threshold: this granite arch soaring
skyward in the middle of a mustard field, keystone
lost in the limpid blue of heaven. Ahead, unknown
country. Images pour through my head like rain:
Death in rusty black cloak, hooded, faceless, scythe
gripped in blanched fingers. And bodies, light as
dried laurel leaves, borne on bamboo biers, covered
in marigolds; tinkling cymbals, heartbeat of drums,
chanting voices bearing the soul back home.

That which is before me is veiled in light. My hand
through the archway no longer a hand, effulgence
of ultraviolet pulsing to a rhythm familiar as my
heartbeat, enigmatic as an atom. I lean my upper
body through the arch. Soft. Smell of almond
blossoms, sticky fig-juice, olive groves. Shiver of
argent sound, bells, chiming inside and out into one,
my skin no longer my skin, no boundary, but a
dissolved definition. An exchange of electrons and
protons with ambient life which once bore many
names–tree, fish, star, mud. My flesh and theirs
transmuted into vibration, dance of particles into
waves, waves and particles, call and answer, calando,
dolce, dolce, tranquillo
. I am a sympathetic string in
a great aeolian harp, vibrating to the melody of these
rushing winds, vast ripples of light and air and spirit.

Step now across the slate-gray stones. Prelude over,
my voice flows into this canon which sings the Real.
My infant son plays in the crack between worlds,
time in his right hand, eternity in his left. He puts
God in his mouth and savors, rolling divinity on
his tongue, face rapt, chortling his own cantata.