***The High Romance***

Purity & Pomegranates

A Passionate Response to
The Song of Solomon (1:1 - 5:1)
by Jon Trott
for Carol
Christmas 2000

A new introduction (2004)

Since writing these lines, I've discovered in love
Deeper shades of meaning, and streaming
Through our common lives is the thread thereof.

I am not sure, today, if Songs was written
By or for Solomon at all,
Or if the "shepherd" and Shulammite
Wrote it, either one, or
Together.

What I do know is that it is beautiful,
And true, not just about them,
But of me and Him and you.

Purity & Pomegrates

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

Solomon the wise, why have you grown old without one love?
Your heart and wisdom cry out
in this, the song of all songs, the mystery of sex and desire.
You grew grey, and your body faded,
yet your heart remembered a love
perhaps known only to your dreams,
or was it truly a woman you knew? and where had she gone?
The wisest of all Kings of Israel, why could you not love one?
All the concubines, all the wives, led your heart astray
even from the God of Israel,
and the Shulammite's pure heat.
Yet there is the Song, and who can say when you wrote it?
I see you an old man, remembering, reminded,
Not writing of God via symbol, but of woman in truth,
and of your desire.
Yet God authors this desire, and in Him the Song of Songs is sung.
The springing seed of human love, the eternal flame,
Consumes all but she and Christ.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you.

Sweet desire, springing upon her heart and
devouring her as she wishes to be devoured.
Praise God for the sensual liquid coolness of the wine,
the warm, gliding oils of aromatic desire,
the name of her beloved causing her nostrils to flare, and pulse
to quicken.
Others love her lover (or so her love-stunned eyes perceive)
Simply because he is.
(Why did I desire God?
Why did he desire me?
I do not know, but cling to Him.
Despite myself, I desire God
with the same passion
I desire her.)

Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.

Her heated heart cries out in ecstasy deferred,
Eager for consummation, the erotic presence of
Kingly charms.
To lie in his bed, she dreams, to be laid beneath him;
all friends rejoice in such a love!
This eros is more potent than the strongest drink!

I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

Her skin is her bragging right, her features a crown;
Let the other women acknowledge that she alone is good enough,
Good enough for her lover's dark tent,
and the ebony curtains that will soon enclose their passion
in the silk embrace.
Draw the curtains around me soon, my beloved!
And I will draw mine around you.

Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!

I am dark, said the girl, sun-stroked skin a curse to some.
Please do not look at me impersonally, lustfully, as a desperate poor girl
willing to please out of despair.
I worked hard at caring for men, but had no one to care for me.
My vineyard, she said, slyly, has never been tended.
No plow has tilled my soil,
No hand has plucked my pomegranates!

Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?

The soul of me, that which lies at my body's center, yearns for my beloved.
The flocks of goats and sheep know his care;
why not me?
Why should I appear as a veiled prostitute,
Hanging around the edges of shepherd society, but
Unloved and unheeded?
Can you tell me where your heart's most tended desires lie?
I, too, wish to pasture near your rod and staff.

If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your kids beside the shepherds' tents.

His desire, gentle in strength, directs her to lead,
A master dancer's move!
If you would know my heart's whereabouts, watch those I care for.
Come and tend them with me, my dear one,
and soon you too will be tended.

I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots.

Do you think, my beloved, that my gentleness is due to desire's lack?
Your presence is that of a noble mare in heat among
the horses of Pharoah; they leap and twitch in frustrated need.
As do I, my fairest one.

Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

The cheek unadorned is plain, but not yours.
The neck bared seems humble, except yours.
Your skin is adornment of fantastical kind.

We will make you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.

How can I further bejewel
That which is perfected already?
Yet my love will strive to adorn you
As befitting your queenly attributes,
in the golden ornamentation of desire,
Studded with passionate longing.

While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.

In my mind's eye, I see the king reclining,
His limbs free of encumbrance.
I imagine feeling the kiss of his lips.
I awaken to the odor of my own body's spices.

My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

Could I wear you around my neck,
Better than an amulet of magical properties,
Best than gold,
Tucked between my risen aoeroles
and smelling of oil and incense.

My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.

Bluish-yellow blossom clusters hang like grapes over me,
Their fragrance begging me to bury my face in them.
En-gedi is a verdant place, surrounded by cliffs of stone.
The journey there requires patience and skill.
Oh, to burrow my body into yours!
The trip will be worth it.

Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

Panting, words pant. Ah, ah. Like that.
You are beautiful, I repeat again and again.
And the cooing of doves, their soft feathers,
Stroke the liquid desire of your eyes.

Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely.

But I, too, feel the need for groans of desire,
"sighs too deep for words." [Rom. 8:26]
How your beauty provokes me!
So my passion is provoked by God.
Not excluding yours,
but included by yours,
and including yours,
and excluding no love,
Except love which is not love.

Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine.

Together hear the lovers' praise
of one another,
natural sensuality,
and the Lord of the senses.
Our bed is a pasture, an orchard, beneath a tree;
the roof is of branches and leaves.
Oh, to hear their rustling above us,
and our sighs below!

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens.

How can he love me, a mere daisy among the orchids?
My love is of no great merit;
many are fairer and of greater worth.
The magnitude of his love for me undoes my pride.
I am no great thing compared to such a love,
and from such a lover.

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

The apples of his love are a fruit of rarity,
and to lean upon his body roots me to the earth.
He blocks the sun from my face with his height,
raining sweet kisses until desire reels.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love.

Does this feast-house have a roof?
None but the greenery of winery vines.
He walks beside me, I well-knowing
He intends to have me, in good time,
His passion and intention one and the same.

Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.

Oh, the waiting for consummation!
If only we were together now, eating love-cakes,
Exhausted after love's repeated twinings
and in need of sustenance to begin again!
I am faint, but not with fruition.
I am tired, but not due to his passion.
I grieve to wait for love's unleashing.

O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!

Do you want to know how much I desire him?
I will tell you, so cover your ears if you are shy around desire.
Passion has no concern for your moralizing now.
Purity of passion burns me,
And I want only his nakedness next to me,
His left hand beneath my head, hair brushing my lips,
While his right hand busies itself between my opened thighs.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!

Oh, fecund gazelles, wild doe in heat,
That is the purity of my desire.
Yet to remain pure, it must wait to be ripened,
Eaten only upon the couch of our marriage vows,
Where desire meets God and God meets man and maid.
Do not awaken love, then, not fully.
Let love dream of that day,
which is soon coming.

The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.

My beloved is as the stag of the fields,
no, even like the Lord Who pursues His Beloved,
His voice sends a thrill of desire through me;
my pulse quickens to run to him
as he leaps all obstacles to come to me.
His love overarches all!

Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.

He waits for me impatiently, peering through the fence.
Why, I wonder, am I here when he is there,
Separated only by walls of human construction?
Love, I know, breaks down such walls,
And glories in their destruction.

My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

Cold rains upon desire with the minutes of time.
His voice whispers in promise.
Time ceases.
I am still his one love.
He has come to take me away.

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

Winter has bound me, songless, to its wheel of patience.
I have grown in waiting, and my love is stronger still.
Blossoms of henna, pomegranate, and nard
appear to accompany the turtledove's calls.
Desire! He sings. Desire! Desire!

The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Woman, you are of the earth as I am,
and your fruit is upon the tree.
All outdoors calls us to commingle;
All God's creation celebrates in a riot of excess!
Come away with me, I say to you a second time.
Come away from the safety of indoors and childhood
into the aromatic colors of spring.

O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

Still you dawdle inside,
Hiding out of a mixture of shyness and coyness.
Don't hide yourself from the hunter's spear;
he is going to find you, and gently remove all remorse.
Your face draws him, your voice unravels him;
Like wild blooms, you draw the stag.

Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards-- for our vineyards are in blossom."

Are the little foxes to spoil the blooms before the stag arrives?
Teasing, her voice tries to torment.
No, there are no others and he knows it.
But her vineyards are flowering!
Oh, to taste those petals.

My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.

She dreams again of the sighing, and
fingers tangled in her lower hair.
Oh, the wonderous torment of love waiting!

Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains.

She dreams her breasts, unbound and budded,
Rise twin tall with he between.
And hope deferred seems near obscene!

Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.

A nightmare of love,
When love is no more,
the lover fled the marriage bed
and woman scorned.
But lovers true refuse the evidence,
Opting for faith
Until faith be proved groundless.

"I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves." I sought him, but found him not.

Faith, in believing, acts.
She, in faithful love, hunts love down.
Love remains unfound.

The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?"

My soul, as in my body whole,
hungers for him; where did he go?
The world's watchers mock such love
And turn away, smirking
and blind.

Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Lover, where had you gone?
I do not care, since you're not there,
but here, and mine, and now.
Lie beside me in the house of my childhood,
Lay with me where I was made.
Touch my womb with seed,
the holy dance of love, time, and faithfulness.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!

The doe lies, now awake, and in heat.
The odor of her body a reminder;
Not yet, oh sweet love, not yet.

What is that coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

Faithful woman, sensuous bride to be,
Look upon the pageant of love's fealty.
Smell your lover's incense, all desire
Winding toward you as smoke from his fire.

Look, it is the litter of Solomon! Around it are sixty mighty men of the mighty men of Israel, all equipped with swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh because of alarms by night.

Oh, old man Solomon, did you remember your glory
Only as the reflection of another couple's story?
Your fame and pomp and circumstance meant little.
Their purity went unsullied by your excess,
your wedding's beauty a shadow of theirs.
Sixty men marched with you, all male, all desiring,
all with swords at their thighs, ready.

King Solomon made himself a palanquin from the wood of Lebanon. He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with love.

Palanquin, couch, carried by servants,
What a precious cargo you carry!
Ridden by the lover-husband,
surrounded by tapestries inwoven with love-scenes,
what a couch to lie upon!
Oh, if only she could lie there now!

Daughters of Jerusalem, come out. Look, O daughters of Zion, at King Solomon, at the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.

There is the king, young in memory, old as he remembers.
If only he had loved as the young lover loved the maiden,
the two of them watching him pass.
Oh, to know intimacy as deeply as they!
He, too, had known gladness.
But of women, he remembered little good.
His own heart held little good for women.
Until, perhaps, he remembered and wrote his
Song of Songs…

How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead.

Ah, the sighs of love.
All feasting outside is not as the feasting here.
There is no hurry; disrobing is slow and sensual
when love undoes the hooks and folds.
Her face is enough for her lover at first,
the veil falling away from her eyes,
Their twinness gazing deeply into his.
His hands caress her locks, his very own flock
to care for.

Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved.

She was all fire before, when dreams directed love;
Now she trembles with desire and dread.
Yet his voice caresses her expertly.
His praises embrace her, and her smile
Exposes yet another avenue of praise.
Her teeth glisten in the sunlight of praise,
then hide against her lips as they meet his.

Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

Lips meet lips, and tongue meets tongue.
Wordless dialogue of love, we praise you!
Lovers' lips are best tasted in God,
and the pomegranates of her blushing cheeks
secrete the sweet saliva of deepest tongue touches.

Your neck is like the tower of David, built in courses; on it hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors.

Brown and graceful neck of my beloved,
Let me bury my face there.
This is the embrace of pre-love and post-love,
the embrace of sorrow and joy.
Mothers hold their infants this way,
and fathers their slain warrior sons.
Yet lovers' faces turn into the neck, wanting it,
and in this way, we know a lovers' embrace.

Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies.

Once a suckling at nipple, then to childhood,
and then to womanhood herself,
how could she know that his suckling would so undo her?
His praises of word rise together with
Lips that silently woo each nipple, and
Hands that caress each fawn's flank.
It is he, not she, who feeds among the lilies.

Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.

His praises are of her aroma and each breast,
His heart and soul and nose all blest,
His mouth the climber of these peaks
Tongue each rosey risen summit seeks
You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.
Love is not blind, but chooses instead,
To see the beloved in the "now" not ahead
To love her as one loves one's flesh
With grave concern and tenderness

Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

Come down from your exile, the high mountain air.
Come close, and closer, and away from any who would harm.
You are in my arms now, you are safe.
It is safe for you to yield to me, because I am yielded to you.

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

Does it seem as though the power is mine, my beloved?
It is yours.
You have ownership over desire,
and so over me;
Your victory is total.

How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!

Words commingled with caress, and touch slowly wandered.
He didn't worry about her clothing, still somewhat around her.
He did not hurry, because time did not exist anymore.
Her sighs were not recorded.
Praising the perfume of Venus' mound,
he explored the totality of her self.
Flowers bloomed, petals widened, dew appeared.
He smelled her and rejoiced.
And this is in the Bible!

Your lips distill nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.

Her honeyed lips give way to his probings,
and he tastes of her the symbols of life: milk and honey.
The scent of her garments is of all outdoors,
And his tongue enters her gently, foreshadowing
the deeper knowing yet to come.

A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed.

Her virginity is sealed, though dream and desire have at times warred against it.
His desire is to enter her, simply, but he refrains.
He praises her for her purity.
He praises her for her patience.
He praises her for her perseverance.

Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard,

He praises her with word and caress,
Her orchard of red-seeded pomegranates,
Aromatic henna and fragrant nard.

nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices--

Nard, oh nard of sensual slickness, all spices of beauty
now spreading their aroma at my touch.
How do I thank God for this? How can I ever thank Him enough?
I am undeserving of her, undeserving--
yet I will have her!
All my senses are alive;
I see her brown skin and reddened, risen nipples,
I taste her body, and her body's oils,
I smell her as a stallion scents a mare in heat,
I touch her… everywhere.
I hear her sighs at my explorations.

a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.

You, and this blossoming vulva, will be my garden of life.
God be praised!
You, and this blushing doorway, will be my well of flowing life.
God be praised!
You, and this dripping oil of love, will be my ambrosia for all my days.
God be praised!

Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.

Take me, my beloved, for all my garden is flowered and ripened.
The fruits I have are yours to eat; consume me, eat me, and be glad.
Taste between my legs, taste within me, know me as I dreamt of being known.
All my body is yours; I am yielded completely and want you, only you.
God is my witness that I desire only you, and you in Him.

I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.

Now comes the time beyond time, when desire unlocks desire
And two become one in Holy Spirit's Fire;
Enter the garden, calamus stem
and the blossoms of the pomegranate give way
to the slow, sensual knowing.

She yields to me, leading me into herself
I yield to her leading, and take her.
God yields to me, until I surrender everything.
God possesses me, and I am filled.
Do not presume to spiritualize the sexual,
or sexualize the spiritual,
or make false walls between them.
Eros and Agape will destroy your handiwork!

The way of a man with a maid
Is a mystery of God's creation.
Adam knew Eve, and I know my beloved.
The Holy Spirit knows me
Even more intimately.

Sex is not, as Freud said, behind the religious urge.
It is the other way around.
And God
Ennobles the vanquished Eros
by marrying him to Agape.
Solomon was led astray by Eros
Because he forgot that Eros
must be owned by only two;
the man and the maiden.
Yet Solomon wrote the Song of all Songs.
And is that not a sign?
Did he realize at last that God was love?
All praise to God!
All praise to love!
All praise to desire!

-postscript-

I desire to be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit,
Baptized, as I was at sixteen,
by the rush of heavenly love and the
ecstatic speaking in tongues.
This agape is more potent even than eros,
yet loves eros!
Love loves love.
Of course.
And I want to embrace my wife,
Even when my body cannot hear
Eros anymore.
She is my self.
She is mine, and I am hers.
I am hers, and she is mine.
And we are Thine, oh Lord.
Amen.

-jon trott, for carol, Christmas 2000
(slightly revised 2004, 2006)