Love Song (II)

In the spirit of prayer
I wait for you in our garden
while myriad antagonistic circumstances thwart our reunion;
daily toil keeps you in the village,
and young garden nymphs conspire to wear me out long before evening.
By nightfall the pomegranate halves beneath my veil run pale,
and your radiant and ruddy cheeks have become over-ripe.

And so we retire long after the day has cooled and the shadows lengthened,
one after the other;
but we wake together, both in the garden,
to begin again, in the heat and in the shadow,
our playful delight in Love’s sweetness.