Read Havah for Free Online Page B

throwing off an orchestra of light.
     
     
I am the trickle from the dark abyss, the running of the stream to the river . . . the drop of water that falls from the stem and becomes a mighty roar.
     
     
    Leaves rustled upon the vine, as loud as a blast of wind in my ear, raising the hair on my arms.
    Daughter!
    Again, as softly as the light of the moon: Daughter.
    Here I am.
    Partaker of life. Knower of mystery.
    Mystery? I have so many questions.
    You will learn answers.
    Do not leave me! Stay with me!
    I could hardly have stood it had it continued. I could not bear for it to stop. Faintly, and, I thought, with a longing I did not yet recognize as sadness, it came: Until the end of days.
    I would see your face!
    But I opened my eyes only upon the azure sky. Rolling to my stomach, I covered my face and wept.
     
     
    I SLEPT BENEATH THE drooping sun, depleted but filled as I often was with the adam, if in a wholly different manner.
    After a while I ate sweet grapes from the vine, spitting out the seeds upon the ground. The adam, I knew, waited on the southern hill for me. I plucked several clusters to take to him. But when my hands were full, I sat abruptly back down in the place where I had lain, not wanting to leave.
    I closed my eyes and laid down again, clutching the clusters of grapes, aware of the fish in the river below, the kite circling above, of every insect crawling politely over my ankle. Eventually, I realized I was no longer alone.
    How lovely you are.
    And you.
    I did not need to open my eyes.
    And how loved by the One you are.
    I heard the unspoken voice like the silk of spiders’ webs, saw without looking the sun upon those scales.
    Yes.
    Are you sated?
    Never.
    Ah. That is how it is with the One. He made us to crave him, don’t you know?
    I lifted my head and blinked at him in the lengthening sun. Indeed?
    Of course. By design, all of creation longs for him.
    I reminded myself that the serpent had been made prior to both the adam and me. Perhaps that explained the strange sense of his tenure here, as though he had lived a vast lifetime before this.
    He preened beneath a wing.
    Then it is well for us that he should satisfy.
    As always, your logic is impeccable. He stopped, tilted his head. I see glimpses of the One in you.
    “Truly?” I said aloud, surprised.
    You are like the One, beautiful and wise.
    But so are you.
    Ah, but I am not so privileged as you, for you were made in the image of the One. So you see, you are more like God than I.
    I thought about what he had said long after the adam came to find me, Adah at his heels. The serpent stayed with us, speaking of ordinary things, and I realized how remarkable our discussions were and how singular. I had them with no other creature save the adam, and the serpent had them only with me.
    We stayed there after the serpent left, watching the stars emerge from the depths of the darkening sky.
     
     
    THAT NIGHT, BENEATH THE adoring light of the full moon, the sight of my adam struck me as a thing of immeasurable beauty. I thought of my dream of him, of that first gasp and the inflation of those lungs crafted to exhale words, rumbling laughter, sighs of pleasure. In light as luminescent, nearly, as twilight, I ran my fingers from his shoulder to his thighs. I kissed the mouth that first devoured divine breath. I savored that neck as though it were nectar. Let me shun food forever. There would be only him—the salt of his sweat and pleasure would fill me.
    That night, beneath a diaphanous curtain of stars, we strove as though we would meld into the single being we had been, until we were no longer male and female but one creature. There was no grass beneath us, no valley below us, and no earth—no other life upon it but ours, enrapt, alone with the mind of God.
    When it was over and we lay exhausted, it was deep night. I curled over, almost onto my knees in the low grass of the terrace, and the adam curled around me. Sometime before morning, he carried