Three Love Chants
1
Dark cedars of dark lebanon.
the ash, the oak.
the elm. O,
the eucalyptus.
The apple (love) apple
(in the empty orchard)
(by the old graveyard)
2
Bone (like shell.
the colour of dry sand):
your breastbone (open
to touch. silver chain)
collar (twice broken.
where you are angles)
spine (a valley. damp.)
This bone (bold) remembering
every break.
3
Sound in the bone
at your breast
(like water)
far off (pushing
over pebbles, storming
down slopes, toward
the dry stone canyon
where I stand
darker than the cedars
and more fragrant.
Copyright Credit: Rachel Tziva Back, "Three Love Chants" from Azimuth. Copyright © 2001 by Rachel Tziva Back. Reprinted by permission of Rachel Tziva Back.