Path

From the base of your spine
to the crown of your head,
She leads you up the path of diamonds
crushed fine as mist, as midnight breeze.
Each step is love, which means
you drop a veil.
Now She is nearer than your name.
Her fingertips are the silences
between heartbeats.
Can you feel her not touching your lungs,
as if, what has held your breath for aeons,
releases its grasp forever?
Why have you refused, until this moment,
to take the wedding walk from belly to brow
under a canopy so black
it is the color of stillness?
Because the most terrible journey is
from self to Self?
Because you thought you would find the Beloved
in an ashram, a temple,
a cathedral, a mosque, a book?
The Beloved does not wear sandals or a white robe.
The Beloved wears the soft cloth of your inhalation.
The Beloved is a vine of roses
on the trellis of your vegus nerve,
more inward than your lost rib.
When you were swimming like a minnow
in the womb of night,
the Beloved sang to you from every star.
Most of her light has not even reached this world,
but her song is still inside you,
as you were inside the Beloved.
If you stop looking for anything special,
it will all be on fire with that love.
Wherever you are, just listen and dance.