The Unseen Lover - Dorothy Walters

[Larry Robinson]

The Unseen Lover
                       
Somehow I guessed that this was going
to happen.
Something told me
this was a special night,
stars, angels, shepherds,
a time to be bookmarked
in history.

Perhaps I knew because
it had happened so often
before,
this pairing of the realms.
Zeus coming down on Leda,
the swan feathers presaging
the angels’ wings,
the heavenly choir surely
there somewhere in
the background.

And of course
there was Dionysus,
born when the Immortal One
ignited Semele to flame,
coming again with 
each season’s turn,
bringing wine and poetry
to free us
from ourselves.

And Persephone, the maiden,
raped and carried away
to spend the dark months
with the nether King,
returned to her mother
in annual efflorescence,
yearly greening
of branch and bud,
field and farm.

Today they speak of aliens,
arriving in strange guises 
to claim their earthly brides,
offspring compounded of dual
realms, strange amalgam
of disparate spheres. 

What if we too
opened our bodies fully
to the formless Other,
made of our wombs
receptacles for light,
for promise,
for overwhelming love?
What if we allowed
the mysterium to enter
and possess?
Who might we then
become?
What worlds might
we beget?

	- Dorothy Walters