Kunj

Don't believe the stories they tell you about Exile.
You never left the Garden;
you just dreamed of separation.

The Tree of Life is your backbone
bending in the breeze of this inhalation,
the red fruit hanging from its limb your heart,
ripening in beams of joy.

I think it must be a pomegranate
spilling thousands of seeds.
The seeds are other hearts, like mine,
translucent crimson droplets of one Self.

Twigs with leaves of flame
twist up the spine into your brain.
Your neurons bud with stars, filling the mind
with light, and all this time
you thought they were above you!

Moses saw his own cerebrum as a Burning Bush,
which he mistook for a desert cactus.
Neuropeptide lightning
inscribed the commandments into his cortex,
laser-nectar, spurting from axon to dendrite.

Twin serpents spiral up the trellis
of your vagus nerve, from sacrum to crown.
Moses thought they were devils, Satan and Lilith,
but they are lovers, Christ and Mary.

They meet in the Bridal Chamber of your heart,
under the canopy of breathing,
in the secret kunj of meditation.

They kiss with tongues of fire.
Only shameless ones like Magdalene and Radha
know how to kiss like that!

Now, perfectly naked, drop your moonlit veil
and step into the chuppah, figs and berries
clustered on your rib cage.

This is the hour of the wedding
in the sacred garden of your body.
This is the time to practice the art
of returning, T'shuvah!
We will meet under the rise and fall
of your chest.
As an exhalation you went forth
to gather the fruits of the earth for an offering.
As an inhalation you return,
laden with burning sweetness.

Crushed like grapes into formless wine,
are we two dancers, or one dance?
Ameen, Ameen, we were betrothed
as the Sun and Moon
before the conception of flesh.

Engraving by William Blake