True Love’s Gifts (audio 3:25)

Here are your gifts, sweet blessed child,
Now laid upon you fair and wild
You shall love, be loved, in equal measure
Gather pockets filled with earthly pleasure
Step with supple grace through Beauty’s way
And rest serene where’ere you lay.

In this sachet the woodbine whispers
Honeyed words now whiff, now bow,
To tuck within your flaxen bodice
Press upon your rumpled brow,
Poetry’s perfume can soothe, anoint,
Pierce lover’s breast with quiver’s point,
But not one word can Love restore
To the heart that cries, “Enough! No more!”

Within this pouch behold! your fate
Swaddled close near unlocked gate
Look closely, there! the slender key
Portends your unchecked destiny,
It fits, unites, with nary a crack
A seamless joining, front to back
Yet the fruits of Love will never befall
One whose latch clings rusted to clay-sodden wall.

Receive this crystal, its perpetual bloom
Splays refracted illuminance round interior rooms
In its presence clarity dwells within
Yet remains in shadow until the spinner spins,
Until the dancer dances, the kiss is shared,
Only through willed action is true intention bared.

Here are your gifts, my beloved child,
Use them only as inspired
They will lead you to joys unimaginably grand
Spark leaping flames lit by Love’s inner fire,
Many may loiter round the moat of the castle,
Many may sup at the cauldron’s rim
Yet valiant few wield a sword of deep knowing,
And fewer still dare to venture within.

Here is your gift, my beloved child,
The truth that joins Heaven and Earth, sacred ground ~
Many talk, many think, many flirt with the Goddess,
Yet True Love knocks in silence
Head tethered,
Heart unbound.