Love and Loss and Lasting

A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement

of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle

caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one
jewel their future

days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—
unending,
endless,
eternal,

They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous
moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time

lay close

jeweled bare on their skin,
on circular strands


Down

the

years


Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres
of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance

(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round

romancing,

the ringing, rubied

Song of songs.



—Daniel Wilcox

First published in Word Catalyst Magazine

--



The Essence of Software


Why is the metal-cased T.V.
fine, structurally sound,

but my loving wife of 60 years

Slowly...

dies?

What repair man can I call
to have her tinkered with

so her inside will remain vibrant and joyous—

that we might share another year together

in our odyssey

through this hard land?

Why isn't there a warranty for her?

"Guaranteed, Call 1-700, Zenith Lasts!"

Already I picture the scene,
the day coming soon like a tsunami

that will roar through our lives

and

drown us all.

I will stand

Lone

without
an umbrella

in the soft, vicious rain

and stare

down

at the immaculate metal coffin

that will endure for centuries—stainless steel, you know—while

my wife

's corny word play
(like the time she pretended
a hot dog was a cigar)

will be gone.

How obscene...the coffin will gleam with color--

the little blue angels

in the panels and the chrome handles—long lasting like the T.V.

But
my wife will not

endure,

not even appear in syndication.

And the only reruns
will be in my head

until my own show
is cancelled.

The T.V. will remain—

Well, maybe not...

It too will wear out
and be dumped

into some landfill

to corrode and rust
to oblivion.


Is there Netflix for humans?



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in La Fenetre, France

--

Their Beekeeper's Moon



Their beekeeper’s moon lasted only several phases

of love’s eternal sphere;

too quickly the warm honey of fired passion,
the illumined glow...

—all those amorous-vesseled words

emptied,

no wined days
or champagne-giddy nights

only

pain-flask-jarring
loss;


then

broken with dishearten
their lacerated lives

scattered into

loose shards,
glass-chasmed


and w i d e n e d---

a barren landfill
of middle years,

their debris-ed evenings...


his wandering looks,

her sidetracked eyes,

their mangled conversation


meant
seemingly
no keeper's hope remained. No communion...

However

graciously in elder-oaked age,


old scars healed and new buds came,
a fresh phase of shine

shone in their faces,

the nectared honey of freely choosing

chosen love
—their lasting
passion.



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in the The Greensilk Journal


--


Ever After


Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress

Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,

Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow

Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward

But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed

From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up

On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,

We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash

Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room

And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,

You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river





In the Light of commitment, kiss your true love,

Daniel Wilcox

A Few Romantic Poems of Commitment and Passion

"Roll Ever Columbia”

They bag fading lighthouses,
Explore more lone departed posts,
Live in their relationship of ship
To water and shore;

Brave roaring ocean storms
Bar none, faring better, more
Than boats-of-line passing through
That perilous channel ‘washing
Tons’ of Oregonian waves,
Churning in between,

But unlike historic river pilots
Who guided in-bound ships
Over that dangerous bar,
His home doesn’t dominate high
On Fort Astor’s exalted bluffs;

And her love hearkens back to 1812,
Long before any lensed high tower,
Back when townies lit up a blazing
Tree as the brilliant signal flare
To direct to an approaching schooner.

His love lights up her coastal way,
Rivering to her protected harbor;
Not like today in shallow America
Where too many a sparred couple
Forever shipwreck their ‘bows.’

He’s an in-bound ship-of-line
Braving the dangerous headland
And the deep rolling river, but above,
His wild woman glows aflame,
Delights his vessel’s guided way;

There’s no disappointment;
Her shored cape opens with
Welcome, he sings the mark,
“Safe water.”

Oh so verdantly green,
Unfathomably deep,
For life;
Roll on,
Dear Columbia,
Ever and ever and ever.


*Don Bruno de Heceta, Spanish Sea Captain, was the first known
European to discover the mouth of the Columbia River in 1775.
*Captain Meares, on July 6, 1788 tried to find safe harbor on the
northern side of the mouth of the Columbia, but couldn’t so named the
place, Cape Disappointment.
*Woody Guthrie song “Roll on Columbia”

By Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Jeanette Cheezum’s
cavalcade of stars

--

two hands

after a fine guitarist’s set,
hidden music
muses
through the spheres

out in the audience
hidden in the middle, two arms
under a table with two full glasses
ignored

two hands commune
caressing
as if the one
and only touching
on earth,
before the fall

for an hour and a half

embodied, that
warm embrace of their fingers
and palms

close slow dancing

no palming
but sheer magic
one body, one spirit



By Daniel Wilcox

First published in vox poetica

--





A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement
of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle
caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one

jewel their future
days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—unending, endless, eternal,


They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time


lay close
jeweled bare on their skin,

on circular strands


Down
the years

Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance




(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round romancing,

the ringing, rubied
Song of songs.



By Daniel Wilcox


First published in Word Catalyst Magazine,
and in outwardlink.net,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls
--



Ever After

Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress
Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,
Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow
Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward
But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed
From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up
On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,
We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash
Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room
And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,
You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river



--


Northeast Night

Under the warm stars
Of that Whittier night,
Not Snowbound
Globally warmed,
Sliding,
Not sledding,
A lass and a lad
–Lasted, ever
Clung so close
Warming,
Like maple syrup
Snuggling
Within his
Large parka,
Smoozing,
Below
A maple
Tree



By Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Jeanette Cheezum’s
cavalcade of stars


--



Summer of Love in Philadelphia

Twenty-two flights above Rittenhouse Square
in the spring of the fall you carved a smilin' pumpkin
candled at your windowed level,
a light in the times of horror and stress;
But below, we wandered our nights with
chapped hands interlocked, pocketed in my coat suede.

We walked blind streets of revolutionary warmer, earlier days
and handled paddles, splashing and pulling canal water,
canoeing near the Delaware,
swishing and crossing where Washington
and we escaped near New Hope,
our newest way from countless foes
through spaces of pilings of bridges
of lush foliage over hung.

We were loving friends three times over
in the spirit and the soul and the city;
though warmed in closeness we never caressed,
for you talked of betweeness and violin practice
and your distant boyfriend on the coast.
I called you evenings when I felt
despair, drafted away from Nam, taught
to work with lost children handicapped
by their errant parent's living.

But summer saw you in Quaker action
In raining D.C. for King's impoverished ones
while I never saw you ever after.

Yet your letters far crossed this land of Guthrie
from Reed in the redwoods of Oregon
To south in teeming L.A.
in the movement of the angels, where
I couldn't see clenched hands or shattered glass
like in the new left bank of America so Isla Vista,
Instead searched of the ancient so
coral deep in the past

on the wretched Cross spanning the centuries,
kind hands outstretched and open wide.

No more passioned letters reach
me,
And Oregon no longer knows
you.

But I 'wonder' in this living stream —
And will now hold you up in the Light,
For within my part of you so longs.


By Daniel Wilcox

First published in Wild Violet Magazine,
and in Quill & Parchment,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls

--


Kiss your true love in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #4: The Heart of Romantic Love

Love is friendship that has caught fire.

From sparks of sharing and caring
and cherishing come great light
in the lives of 2 individuals.

And that light overflows beyond the couple,
enlightening, helping, bringing hope and goodness
to others.

And often creates new unique new little beings:-)


To use a different analogy,
Love grows like a glowing vineyard in the sunrise,
takes root and develops one day at a time.

First, the exuberant bursting forth of new love,
then the gradual increase and budding of succulent grapes.
Sensuously, phrases from the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible
express this wonder.

"Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your love is more delightful than wine." Song of Songs 1:2



Then love in maturity is like fine wine, improves with age.

Loving commitment is quiet understanding and mature acceptance
of imperfection. Love gives strength and creatively opens
in new ways to your beloved.

You are warmed by your beloved’s presence, even when your lover is away.
Miles do not separate. You want your beloved nearer. But near or far,
you know your lover is yours, and you are your beloved's.

Love means patience and trust. Love springs up; you and your beloved feel more whole.

Love fills the empty spaces in your hearts, leads you both to look up, and to give out to others, welling over with caring and compassion. Love is creative, compassionate, gentle, and kind, coming from the deep heart of God.

Love is choosing again and again, daily to love your beloved even in the hard times.

Love is wider than the widest, deeper than the deepest, closer than the closest--a fire of chosen passion.
--Anon and adapted


"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous and does not boast; love is not arrogant 5 or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; Love is not irritable or resentful; 6 Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love covers all, trusts all, hopes all, endures all.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love never ends."
1 Corinthians 13 Adapted, New Testament


7 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
...18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love
...let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth
1 John 4: 7-12, 18, 1 John 3:18

Next Time--Marriage as a Covenant

covenant (n.)
c.1300, from Old French covenant "agreement," originally present participle of covenir "agree, meet," from Latin convenire "come together" (see convene). Applied in Scripture to God's arrangements with man as a translation of Latin testamentum, Greek diatheke, both rendering Hebrew berith (though testament also is used for the same word in different places).
Online Etymology Dictionary

To be continued--


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Ruth: A Love Story?

When I first heard sermons on Ruth as a teenager, the book was called a love story. But I didn't get it. I would re-read the few pages looking for romance, passion, even a little affection--and find little to speak of (speaking of Cupid). Where were the passionate verses like in the Song of Songs?

And what was this? Ruth obeys her mother-in-law to go see an old man named Boaz rather than meet a young guy? Lastly, near the end of the story instead of a marriage celebration, the verses focus on Boaz being involved in a complicated legal land deal related to Ruth. Where's the details of their relationship after the meeting night and their wedding?

So why am I, then, writing this blog on Valentine's Day weekend?

Because, later when I studied the story academically, I discovered the nuances and euphemisms, and the transcendent themes in the book. Consider the pivotal scene of the story: Ruth 3:3-7 Ruth washes herself, anoints her body, puts on her best clothes and then goes down to a dusty farm workplace in the middle of the night to secretly sleep next to Boaz, a rich man. Sounds rather suggestive does it not?

But the literal Hebrew is even stranger, more provocative. After Ruth sneaks into the workplace, she is to "uncover his feet and lie down" next to where Boaz is sleeping. In Hebrew, "the feet" often refer to human private parts. For instance, angels are said to cover their feet with their wings; the text isn't talking about their toes.

Furthermore, the words "lie down" are often a euphemism in Hebrew for sexual intercourse. Notice in verse 4, that "lies down" is referred to three times and then again in verses 7, 8,13, 14. Also, Boaz who was eating and drinking until merry is sleeping near a heap of grain. And he later gives Ruth much grain. These images "eating and drinking" and "grain" are images used for sexual lovemaking in the Song of Songs--probably so here too. And there are more such implications in the verses, but this probably suffices for the plot line.

By now, you probably, also, are beginning to notice some intriguing comparisons and contrasts between the books of Esther and Ruth. In both a foreign young woman marries an old leader; in both people are eating and drinking. But in the former the leader is lazy, superficial, and selfish while in the latter, he is hard working, deep, and generous. In the former, Jewish separate identity is the focus, in the latter individual choice is emphasized, not ethnic background, nationality, or bloodline. In the former, it ends with a slaughter of one's enemies (probably including women and children); in the latter the story ends with love of opposites, the marital joining of two opposing human groups in the conceiving of a baby. Sound familiar? Hold on.

One of the central themes of this love story is openness to others, even enemies and an ethical polemic against ethnocentrism and religious exclusivism seen elsewhere in the Jewish Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 23:3-6 says "No...Moabite shall enter the assembly of Yahweh; none of their descendents...you shall never seek their peace or their prosperity..." and Ezra 9: 1-2, 10:2 ..."The people of Israel...have not separated themselves from the...Moabites,,,for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves...And Shecaniah..said to Ezra, We have been unfaithful to our God, and have married foreign women...so now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children..."

Instead, at the end of Ruth, the text says "Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And Yahweh gave her conception, and she gave birth to a son...Blessed is Yahweh who has not left you without a redeemer."

Without necessarily arguing that the story of Ruth was originally intended as a messianic promise, one can see how followers of Jesus the Redeemer saw in all of this an allegory. Jesus was a descendent of Ruth, a Moabitess, a hated enemy of the Jews, and allegedly the Moabites were a despised result of incest. Yet from this union of Moabitess and Jewish leader came a child. And so in the case of Jesus, Ruth's descendent, another child born of a foreign woman under questionable circumstances which would reconcile enemies, and bring love to all humankind.

What if instead of emphasizing ethnic identity, nationality, religious differences, and bloodline, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would fall in love at the "threshing floor"? What if they would join together, not separate or battle one another? What if they would marry, become one in love?

There is truly good news--the true meaning of Valentine's Day, not heart-shaped cards, but open hearts of love for others.

Don't be ruthless;-) like most humans, playing to divisive religious texts or nature's lowest denominator. Instead, become like Ruth and Boaz--be passionate and generous and loyal, live for others, and love your enemy.

To be continued

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox