Please enjoy this poem from Syracuse poet E.J. Evans’ collection, First Snow Coming
SEX
It is not that we are searching for something in each other,
but that something is searching,
through these devious means, for us.
That the spirit powers must be real and present
somewhere we infer from this, all the ways
in which they compel our devotions, distantly perhaps
but ever relentless as the tides. Even so,
we must fear deep down in the lonely dark that
we are never quite well or whole enough,
not ever quite ready, for these the intenser graces.
We start out with empty spaces in us
and they become larger, become deserts waiting for rain.
Over them the stars rise and fall, the day turns
and bends toward night, as the body turns and turns
in its blindness, seeking some way, any way , of seeing.
Touch follows touch and a path is made thereby.
So we follow this wandering way,
knowing no other direction, closer it seems, to each other.
Close enough perhaps to hear a familiar low voice
inside one of us that calls “are you there?”
and in response the other that barely whispers
into the dark “are you there?”
E.J. Evans, First Snow Coming, 2015