My Sheikh is the Moon

“Don’t look for water, be thirsty.”

                        ~Rumi

 

One look into my eyes and he knew

I live on the furthest shores of love.

 

In my last three dreams

I dreamt of water.

A rogue wave washed over

our little house on the beach.

Rain filled me up like an empty cup.

Dead fish came to life.

I bowed so low, another lover’s

tears made their way to me.

 

Every day

he sees I am

growing more simple.

Soon I will be

no more than

a beautiful idiot

panting in the sun;

Being is the only beauty.

 

But for now

I lie awake

trying to unite

the mysteries of night

with the mathematics of day.

This shore,

like every shore,

is a path littered with

bric-a-brac from a conflicted sea

giving and taking successively.

 

Night is the water I swim in.

By day…. I float face up

while everyone else

appears to live

the other way round.

 

My sheikh is the moon.

He prickles my skin

with stray starlight;

a resolute rain.

He watches over me

for I am the water

his face reflects in.

We are that intimate.

 

Peter Valentyne

January 2011