In fact, the stars orbiting that irresistible moon
Secret away their own luminous forms
Whenever she shines without restraint
Upon the world entire.
— Sappho —
desire: a dangerous flame…
The problems start when desire is no longer about discovery, but just a cheap way of avoiding love…
… when I have trusted my desire, whether or not I have acted on it, life has become much more difficult, but strangely more illuminated. When I have not trusted my desire, out of cowardice or common sense, slowly I have gone into shadow…
dirty little secrets…
She is enough,
but the simple fact that she is real
scares you so damn much.
— Zahara Jade —
three times my life has opened…
Three times my life has opened.
Once, into darkness and rain.
Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts
to remember each time it enters the act of love.
Once, to the fire that holds all.
These three were not different.
You will recognize what I am saying or you will not.
But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves
like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks.
Neither are we different in what we know.
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light
stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor,
or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.— Jane Hirshfield —