We had just finished our ride,
and we were parched and pressed
to sling a leg off the back of our bikes.
Salt crusted jerseys glared flat and dull
in the sultry sun of High Spring, falling
all shimmery clear and gold, splashing
on the hot black radiant parking lot
like wedding rice.

Across the street
the stilted and dumb
rain-birds spit water
on the swollen
green baseball field,
which was so happy
in the drizzle
it reeked noisily
of lazy drinks at twilight
and kids at play.

We looked on silently,
and then drained our own draughts
and added our tired joyful scent to the melange.

Soon, bikes bunked again in the van
and our 455 air-conditioner at a lazy 45,
we rolled towards dinner and wine,
and the lovely sleep of the dead a bike ride bequeaths.

My soul sang and hummed along
with the soft sibilant tires,
and I knew my favorite pasture
was soon to jump up into me
from across the ditch.

I hung my head out the window,
let my tongue taste the air
and the wind bury wild
sensual fingers in my hair.

And then she was there,
smelling ancient and new
and fresh and fertile and pulsing,
eager like love making on an endless afternoon
sweet and free under plush rustley blue skies.
I heard her song,
I felt her tug in my guts,
I tasted her tang in the wind
and shivered with delight.

She was shorn, fresh-mowed
and relieved, light and lively
and sprawling in mystery,
cloaked in new nakedness
and hidden behind beauty marks revealed.

She breathed…
deep rhythm
and spin and pulse…
deep.

Silly Samsons thought
she was Delilah returned,
so they came for
assey jawbone revenge,
and left with her full
alfalfa tresses tamed and taken.

I think she just laughed.
Because, blinded by the usual,
they had no clue that my Deborah,
my delight, my paradise
had wonders not touched
or dreamed of save by dreamers
and by trackers and wonder-holics
with the DTs of delectation
who would sell their mama’s souls
for just a whiff, just a taste, just a touch
of beyond the Beyond…
she is there for us always.

Time stood still as we passed her,
and birdsong wove wonder-ways
into her chambers, and there,
in the deep back,
where her leggy tree thatches
came together and merged,
where her center throbbed,
supple gloaming dark,
soft and silky rose
from beneath the wood,
seeped black and creamy
from the edge of field
and trees.

And I knew that I beheld the center,
the wellspring of beauty and
the font of her rivers,
her fertile forever flow,
her temple, her womb.
And I felt her curve
round her children yet born,
even as she reached
and caressed my cheek
as I flew by with kisses
of a queen to me her
handmaiden.

Soon we were passed,
hurtling headfirst towards tomorrow
while she moved and danced
and stayed rooted in her everthere.

Light just so, wind just so,
I knew that door
would never show again.
I sighed, licked my salty lips
and ached fiercely with heart

full of her sweet always song.