SONG OF CREATION: ETÉ

by: Zella Muriel Wright

T is good to be loved.

A man waits for me

Who will cover my body with kisses;

He will bury his face in my hair;

He will weep with joy at the touch of me.

It is good to be loved.

 

I wait for you in the dusk.

How strange you seem tonight!

Your eyes glisten with a burnished light,

Like the eyes of a serpent,

Like the eyes of a god.

Wherever your eyes are turned upon me

My flesh burns

As tho' two coals were laid upon it;

But I do not move.

Why do you never take your eyes from me?

Why do you tremble and grow so pale,

You who were so radiant and rigid

A moment ago?

You touch me and drop weakly in a heap;

There is no power in your muscles.

But it is only the weakness before madness;

A madness that gives you a ten-fold strength.

For a second I shrink with fear,

Lest in your ferocity, you devour me.

Then I laugh--my whole body laughs;

But I move not.

On my lips there is a faint smile,

Shall I tell you why I smile?

 

I smile because I am happy;

Because this instant is my instant

In this eternity of eternities.

Tonight I understand that life is not

The groping, broken, half-thing

It has always seemed.

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