I WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO EVERYONE I MEET SOMETIMES

This poem was written November 6, 2002. Posting here because it "spoke" again today.

At sunset, Ramadan begins
and I wonder whether I will keep the fast
though I am not Muslim
and have no desire to be
but, to concentrate deliberately
on God and to make my body wait
for passon and for food and water--
that intrigues me

A lunar calendar month
28 1/2 days could go quickly 
and the days are short
it's winter in the northern hemisphere
and daylight is not quite 10 hours
but what about Muslims
in the summertime of Ramadan
where days are hot and long,
and you still have to raise children
and work

a cold cup of water is better than sex
on such days, and resisting 
sex is nothing during the fast
but water--that's a different matter

every year I think of keeping
Yom Kippur and Ramadan and
other sacred days that have nothing
to do with Christ
I wonder what would make me
a hold woman--what besides that fact
that I wam weird and have visions
and dreams and use phrases like,
"The Lord says."

I pray and sometimes I know
the futility of prayer, but 
sometimes I pray and feel 
so close to God, but never so
close as when I sing or write

My mind is a strange object and
calls out to the weirdest notions

I want to make love to everyone I meet sometimes

and that thought alone excites me
and makes me want to make love more,
but not to nameless and faceless people:
I want to know everyone I make love to
and wish to God sometimes that there were
sacred prostitute in the Temple of the Lord

I feel no shame for these thoughts of feelings

Sometimes when I'm with my friends--
male or female--or with my children (by
birth or adoption) the sensation
of being with them makes me 
so happy it turns me on

I'm sure I would be called a pervert
by the pure in heart, but I think
this sensual me is purely human
purely woman, purely holy
I love and lust after those I love
sometimes it's reversed: I lust,
then learn to love.

I meet people and feel so completely connected
that I want to know them in the way
Even knew Adam. I want to be the mother
of all living things. I want to give birth
with each of them to song, a poem,
a silent moment infused with sighs
and a joy-filled grin.

(You make me smile and sigh--that is how I know I love you)

©  Valerie Bridgeman
Posted March 17, 2013
Written November 6, 2002