My Face Shone

Then came the music, composed from the very notes you had played upon my being, and so aroused in me. Within myself, woman living in me, streams of love and pleasure, I carried you tenderly to the foot of the hill, the brow, and nurtured you there. And those streams of love, that living room of peace in me, opened to God.

With delight my woman trembled with longing before the infinite, and all things I felt for you were felt for God. So strove we in this way to the crown of the hill where the ravishment would take place, fully exposed, melted, gentled to the Sun. For as a living offering, a willing sacrifice my woman came. Came because love longing drove her, to where earth rises no more, and the great heavens swoop. So came I as she, and she as me. So came I as myself, and in worship made love to God, unseen, unknown.

And the great peace came. The wind dropped. The leaves were still. No birds sang. On the very hilltop, abandoned, broke and every bone in limpness and peace, I looked into the abyss. It was the face of God I saw, empty, everywhere, effortless. And in the abyss one drop of bliss fell upon my tongue, and my face shone.

Tony Crisp copyright 1972