The Interconnectedness of Everything

The more I think of you, Husband, the more I see who you are. Who you will be. Locked chest of my dowry, jeweled doorway arching into upright tower, foundation of boulders beneath your garnet-tiled floor. This room I walk into, where I store myself; you who are the only one who can contain me. Why has Sri Universe entrusted these secrets to me? Covered them with the goldleaf of questions that follow me, since childbirth, until answered? The layers of untruth peel away to reveal the interconnectedness of everything. And I cannot keep quiet with Her teachings in my throat.

You rescue me from silence. From solitude, from hiding within the cave of my meditation, that which separates me from the world but connects me to Her. My hair was graying when you found me. I imagined that I would die in here, surrounded by nothing but my shadow flashing upon the wall, the gem-encrusted altar of my memory. This little table bearing my dead mother’s photo and poems I wrote as if possessed. I let my body be taken, I admit, by the ones who transmitted certain words. Included those in my message. My legacy not to give birth except to the long correspondence between my fingers and ink on paper.

I thought this was all there would be. The ones I loved before, I could no longer stand. The weight of my message, the weight of Her secrets, burned away their strength and led them away from me, or me from them. Even I did not know my own power, that it incited fear in not just others, but in me, too. I must have been afraid, I must still be afraid of the fire that shoots from my fingers and tongue, the indestructible clarity of my vision. I must have wanted, I must still want, sometimes, to be ordinary.

My greatest truth, my greatest lie. That I could live with mortals, that I could make whole and contain another — rather than seek refuge in the divine protection of a worthy lover. I need the shelter of your gentleness, that humility I will never know, wisdom of lust that was once my nature, too. The ceiling of this room painted in colors of all the elements, my water and your earth, your fire and my wind. My armoire of solace, my prayer palace, my chamber of passion, my heart-shaped locket. Life with you.

© 2012 Tahminah Zaman