the dance of death

"To make love. we dance with Death. There will be flowing, there will be draining, there will be live birth and still birth and yet born-again birth of something new. To love is to learn the steps. To make love is to dance the dance".

-- Namita Gokhale, The Book of Shiva

i arose from the mists, body sinuous and serpent-like, scenting and tasting the air, caressed by each mote of water as it clung to the surface of my skin.

the beloved arose beside me, his long dark hair sweet with all the fragrance of desire and destruction. his strong, muscular body wrapped around mine. the mists upon his skin coalesced with that which clung to me, and the world was deluged in the flood.

we swam within it for eons, entwined, locked together point for point, lost in the ecstasy of shared communion. passion encased us within its shell. we died together even as the breath of rapture left our lips.

i arose from the mists, body sinuous and serpent-like, scenting and tasting the air, caressed by each mote of water as it clung to the surface of my skin...