The Visage of a Dea Vivente

It is here, at Your Temple,
I worship,
It is Your Book
I study,
Your Lines
I trace with my fingers

over
and
over,

until I have learned them all by heart.

It is here, at Your Altar,
I lie,
It is this hallowed-place,
whose candlelit, rococo curves
so delight my eye,
whose sacred, sweet perfume
suffuses my air,
whose ancient and holy wine
sweetens my tongue

again
and
again,

until I feel Heaven
through Your flesh
and see
Paradise
through Your eyes.

It is here, to Your Inner Sanctum I come
so willingly,
It is Your heart I pray to
so humbly,
Your velvet-robed recesses
I confess my love to
so sweetly,
so longingly,
so passionately,
so unrepentantly,

over
and
over
again,

until I hear holy words come
from Your lips
and see rapture itself
in Your face -

The visage of a Dea Vivente


©Linda Giovanna Zambanini
May 27, 2002
for Lorella

Love shook my soul , like on the mountain the wind upon the oaks falls... ~Sappho, 7th c b.c.e. fragment #40

Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal... ~Sappho, 7th c b.c.e.

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Created 10/08/2000 by Linda Giovanna Zambanini, Bloomington, IN USA
last updated