“Soothing as the Night Winds are”
Salvador B. Espinas
Love is gentle, love is quiet
Like any distant star;
Love is beauty, love is music
Soothing as the night winds are.
Love is patient and unselfish
Divine, true, neutral, fair
Love is ageless and immortal,
Lost love is just somewhere.
And the heart that love abandons,
Nurses a tender scar,
Softly stabbing, and yet sweetly
Soothing as the night winds
are.
(Courtesy
of my first year high school English textbook, “Communication, Arts, and Skills
through Filipino Literature” by authors Josephine B. Serrano and Milagros G.
Lapid; third edition, reprinted 1996 by Phoenix Publishing House)
***
***
A detail from Gustav Klimt's Fulfillment at the Tree of Life
These
are some of the sensuous scriptural texts from the Old Testament’s Song of
Solomon
“The king lies on his bed, enchanted
by the fragrance of my perfume.
My beloved is a packet of myrrh
lying between my bosom.” ~The Girl~
“My beloved is a bouquet of flowers
in the gardens of Engedi.
How beautiful you are, my love, how
beautiful!
Your eyes are soft as doves.
What a lovely, pleasant thing you
are, lying here upon the grass,
shaded by the cedar trees and
firs.” ~King Solomon~
(1:12-17)
“Who is this coming from the desert,
leaning on her beloved?” ~Young Women of Jerusalem~
“ Under the apple tree where your
mother gave birth to you in her travail,
there I awakened your love.” ~King
Solomon~
“Seal me in your heart with
permanent bethrothal, for love is as strong as death and jealousy is as cruel
as hell.
Love flashes fire, the very flame of
Yahweh.
Many waters can not quench the flame
of love, neither can the floods drown it.
If a man tried to buy it with
everything he owned, he couldn’t do it. ~The Girl~
(8:5,6,7)
Hey, it was only lately that I
learned that the Bible itself contains what scholars interpreted as ancient
love poetry with subtle eroticism but it celebrated the beauty of marital
union. The Song of Solomon, on the other hand, was believed by Jews and
Christians since antiquity as a love poem that symbolizes the mystical union of
God with Israel and later on, Christ with His Church.
And the whole Song rich with all the
simile and metaphors and other figures of speech, is actually delightful.
***
Why did I post these beautiful
poetry in the first place? Literary appreciation, that was! And it was not
about solidarity in celebrating the love month. I had never been in love
anyway. And if ever reincarnation is absolutely true, during the course of the
transmigration of my soul, probably I had lived single-blessed, blissful
lifetimes before. Probably I was a hermit or a monk, bachelor for life then. I
feel that past lives have to do with the present.
