“The true wine is compassion...”
~Rumi
It's a crazy vineyard.
These grapes have already
fermented on the vine.
They don't even need
to be crushed.
Why get drunk like Jesus?
Why get high like Rumi
out in his field of scarlet poppies?
Or Magdalene who sipped
too many cocktails
at her bridal shower,
or Mira the tipsy paramour
of Krishna?
Each gets drunk in her own way.
Savor your inebriation.
One grape is a hologram
containing all the stars,
black holes, pulsars beyond
the rim of light.
It may be that you are only
a drop in the sea, but when
the drop falls back into the deep,
the ocean gets its flavor
and never tastes the same.
For billions of years
these swirling constellations
groaned like patient beasts,
bearing buckets of fire, prana,
hydrocarbons and myrrh
just to distill the unique bouquet
of your breath.
Pruners have labored like lovers
over your vine.
Would they do all that work
simply to pour you back
into dry brown sod?
No friend, the cosmos strove
to give your blood its
peculiar glow,
a singular fragrance made
of distant galaxies.
Your pronoun is "Thou,"
like Christ's, like mine,
like the clang
of the empty wine cup,
wanting.
Painting, 'Girl With Grapes,' W. A. Bouguereau.
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