The Beloved
Have you ever read the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, in the Old Testament of the Bible?
It’s so completely different from any other parts of the Bible - it feels more like Indian love poetry, with the conversational voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning, missing each other. It’s really beautiful and carries a lot of embedded imagery which recall a time of pre-patriarchal religion - pomegranate as an image of the womb and of fertility, and the apple as a symbol of feminine knowledge and empowerment, rather than a distorted symbol of sin that it later became. Here’s a poem that I created inspired by the imagery within the Song of Songs, accompanied by one of my favourite paintings, ‘The Shulammite’ by Gustave Wappers, the Shulammite being one name for the female lover in the Song.
Love Poem to the Beloved
spiralling shoots of vines across time
my beloved’s tendril fingers feeling for my face
reaching through space
to caress my cheeks
rosy with the flush of the apple
ripe and juicy hind hands
muscular as the royal hand that holds the orb
circling my pomegranate orbs
delighting in the dance across the desert sands of time
stroking rivers of hair glossy under his burnishing caress care
spice scented passion pelts stalking pacing vining entwining
soul flames surging to Sinai heights of lion breath heat
pomegranate fig skins full juice dripping bursting
subsiding to cool well stillness
sinking back to the depths of desert night darkness
fingertips only ever separated by the breadth of a hair,
of spiralling shoots of vines across time…
