she was lying on the jetty, legs over the edge,  eyes closed to the sky, as i stepped over her naked breasts.  she looked up and smiled.  i smiled back down at her, placed my towel on the edge of the boards, knelt and interlocking my fingers placed my head firmly on the wood, the back of my skull nestled in the cradle of my fingers and palms.  swinging my knees up and extending my legs into my toes, the world turned, the sky below my feet, the earth under my hair, and her eyes opening into mine.

we met in that glance, the blood in my head burning my eyes blue, without needing to greet each other.  later she tried to tell me how it felt, how the ground shifted beneath her and threw her into an infinite immensity of space vibrating with possibility, with promise, as she opened her eyes from her reverie to find herself, quite unexpectedly, looking deeply into the bright blue of my soft inverted eyes looking unflinchingly into hers. 

then her eyelids closed, and mine moved to the eyes of her breasts, thinking that if i needed any inspiration to hold my position, that was surely it.  then she rose and broke into the ocean in a single sweeping arc from wood to water, flowing easily like the waves she entered.  and as she swam back towards me, back to the jetty, she spoke, and the rhetoric of her question was her greeting, which i acknowledged ironically pretending i did not know who it was.

but i knew her.  she belonged in that moment as much as the sun burning into my shoulders, my shoulders burning into my mind, my mind melting into my flesh. she belonged somehow: to the sun and the sea where they met there in the gathering calm of dusk, she belonged to the untameable rhythm of the day, to the unpredictable flux of the water, she belonged to me.  and i, i belonged to her.  not as a possession, not in a bond of power, but in an embrace of empowerment, effortlessly, naturally.

talking to the others , she was outside, alone, untouched.  i tried to draw her in, but she did not want to be led. she played with the children, and lay in the sun, languid and lazy.  a lion certain in her power, she had no need to assert her presence, which i for one could not ignore, did not want to.

as we all walked along the beach i told her that in my own way, and she accepted my acknowledgement with the imperturbability of a queen, whose power is beyond question, and whose needs are all met, neither accepting nor rejecting  the offer of my sword, but knowing that she only had to reach out and it would be in her hand.

when they left me,  i knew that if she were tired and laying down to sleep, i wanted to be lying beside her.  just to feel the liquid rhythm of her presence in my cells again. to let my breath play gently on her neck. to smell the sweat and salt on her skin. to lay my arm over her belly and sleep in a cradle of undefined belonging.  it wasnt a hungry wanting, there was no ache in it, no pressure.  just a gentle but consistent breeze playing on the surface of my cells from within, rising up from some untraceable source deep, deep inside.

so i went to her boat.  my feet told me as soon as they hit the deck that i was not welcome, but that it was not her speaking.  so i stayed, i spoke to her, touched her arm again, told her to come in the morning if she wanted to, and told her that my cells had ears and they could hear that i was not welcome on the boat, but that they could hear her welcome, and that they accepted.

when i saw her coming across the water in the morning i was not surprised, not even happy, simply assured, confirmed. in class her presence was so quiet, but strong.  her eyes smiled at mine when i looked into them, so open.  touching me with the heat and the wind of her secret abandon.  her stillness, her power, quickening my cells.  the strong lines of her body calling my hands to adjust them, to bring them to a finer harmony, a fuller balance.  i allowed my hands to linger, my fingers tasting her skin, our cells laughing now, as i stepped out of my role as her teacher and told her of my knowing and its delight.

when i came back to take her to the beach, she lay in the hammock lazy as a cat, secure as a child on the breast. we walked easily to the beach, stillness lying between us like a mist, familiarity flowing around us like water.  on the rocks as she knelt to look out at the waves, her back loomed up like a the face of an unclimbed mountain. i did not have to pause to wonder as my finger stretched out and lay its gossamer kisses up the line of her spine.  moving so slowly and so lightly it could have been the wind but for the way her muscles rippled at the touch, her spine danced to the tingling in her nerves, in my nerves.  this was a fire that burned between us without a wind to muster it, without a breath of desire.  naked touch.  hello my friend, feel me, know me, i am here, i am with you, enjoy me as we both enjoy the embrace of the sun, the challenge of the waves, the quiet solitude of the rocks. i am here. you are welcome.

her skin accepted my fingers on her back, her shoulders,  neck,  arms  her legs.  her heart accepted my touch, but her mind was wary, and she didnt want my fingers to presume that just because she liked them dancing on her flesh that they were heralds of  more decisive explorations.  so she looked to the ocean for refuge from her uncertainty, not wanting our closeness to blur unnoticed into intrusion.  so i stood and watched her measuring the sea, feeling the strength, the certainty of her toes, her legs. her muscles and nerves preparing to launch her past the uncertainty of her mind and into the unpredictable tumult of the ocean driven by the wind and currents up against and over the rocks, rising and falling, twisting in secret patterns beneath her.

when she dived, sudden as lightning,  her body arching over and down into the water, sure as the sun that glistened on her sweat stained skin that had left its taste on my tongue, my eyes, my breath, my nerves went with her, gliding through the air like an eagle, slicing into the waves , powering against the current like a dolphin dancing the wild choreography of the sea.  this was what i knew.  this refusal to be bound, to be limited by fear.  this ease with the elements, this ready dance between the power of her mind, the beautiful strength of her body, and the untamable forces of nature, whose wild beauty she highlighted with her own, with her willingness to respond to their beauty by embracing their danger, by throwing off the chains of security and plunging into the rich kiss of the unknown.  this was the fibre of our belonging.

then when we dived together i felt the power emerge in my own veins, as i leapt past my fear, and soared in the spaciousness that opened beyond it, laughing at the ease of doing, enjoying the freedom of letting go, and finding myself so far from danger, in the punching delight of being alive and whole, burning with rapture.

two young dolphins, we played in the water.   riding on her back, diving down to see how the water adorned the honest beauty of her limbs with a supernatural light and lightness, the strength of the crossing currents was nothing compared to the winds that blew between us, throwing us together in splutters of laughter, separating us into the the raging fire of diamond smiles.  our limbs held candid conversations, as we made love without touching, the water transmitting the currents from the banks of my cells to hers and back again, in waves that rose and fell deep, deep down inside, and shone brazenly from our eyes.

walking the hot sand, on the street, or sitting in the bar in the cool of the evening the waves were still with us, rising and falling in and between our cells incessantly, until i would have to touch her to relieve the pressure,  just a little touch of my knee against her thigh,  my calf against her shin.  each  time the waves would come back at me out of her eyes, delight of my cells focussed blazingly in her pupils, shining back the joy of her own, singing the song of our timeless belonging.

and then when my hands and my mouth let themselves go about her flesh, dancing and drinking deep into her nerves, eliciting a dance of delight from her cells, rippling hot into her muscles, her lungs, her throat, there was no pressure, no longing, there was no trace of desire that needed to appease itself. my fingers and tongue played upon her like an answer, not a question.  they took all they needed and gave it straight back.  they were not going anywhere.  there was nowhere else to go.   so we returned to the water, to make love to each other through the waves, without touching. to make love to the ocean through each other. to kindle the power with each movement, each breath, and never force it to the focus that releases and ends it.

so we cannot say goodbye, though we part, for we never had to say hello.   beginingless, endless.

1991
for manuella