his cheek was resting against the top of my head. Emotion streamed from his heart, though his lips were silent.
Gratitude.
I am the treasure mined from the rock, the gem prized from the mount.
He stirred only when I did and released me with great reluctance. By then the sun had moved along the length of our valley. My stomach murmured.
He led me to the orchard and fed me the firm flesh of plums, biting carefully around the pits and feeding the pieces to me until juice ran down our chins and bees came to sample it. He kissed my fingers and hands and laid his cheek against my palms.
That evening we lay in a bower of hyssop and rushes—a bower, I realized, that he must have made on a day before this one.
A day before I existed.
We observed together the changing sky as it cooled gold and russet and purple, finally anointing the clay earth red.
Taken from me. Flesh of my flesh. At last. I heard the timbre of his voice in my head in my last waking moment. Marvel and wonder were upon his lips as he kissed my closing eyes.
I knew then he would do anything for me.
THAT NIGHT I DREAMED of blackness. Black, greater than the depths of the river or the great abyss beneath the lake.
From within that nothingness came a voice that was not a voice, that was neither sound nor word but volition and command and genesis. And from the voice, a word that was no word but the language of power and fruition.
There! A mote spark—a light first so small as the tip of a pine needle. It exploded past the periphery of my dreaming vision, obliterating the dark. The heavens were vast in an instant, stretching without cease to the edges of eternity.
I careened past new bodies that tugged me in every direction; even the tiniest particles possessed their own gravity. From each of them came the same concert, that symphony of energy and light.
I came to stand upon the earth. It was a great welter of water, the surface of it ablaze with the refracted light of heavens upon heavens. It shook my every fiber, like a string that is plucked and allowed to resonate forever.
I was galvanized, made anew, thrumming that inaugural sound: the yawning of eternity.
Amidst it all came the unmistakable command:
Wake!
2
Blue. Was I made anew? Bird flight perforated my line of sight. I closed my eyes, aware of the form against me, of the slow rise and fall of his chest, the heavy warmth of his arm over me.
I waited for something. I had woken with an ache like hunger that had nothing to do with food.
I need you. It was longing and craving and declaration all at once.
I Am. It came not from the man, but the One whose voice was far gentler and more awesome—a voice for whispering the heavens to life.
I shivered. The man beside me stirred and drew me closer.
After a while I drifted back to sleep, anxious for nothing. Wanting for nothing.
But still, somehow, desiring more.
THE ADAM MADE HIS bed in the foothills. That morning I learned why: the grasses and heath of the valley floor were damp and spongy underfoot as they had not been the night before.
This time he woke before me. Fingertips drifted over my shoulder, my cheek, my brow. The arm beneath me cradled my head.
I opened my eyes. His were already intent upon me. “There is knowledge in your eyes that was not there before.” Wonder sang in his words.
I have seen the making of the heavens.
He drew a sharp breath, lifted my fingers to his lips.
My sustainer, my counterpart. Given as the One has said. To you are known the mysteries of creation!
He jumped up and shouted his jubilance to the sky. He stomped the earth and clapped his hands. I laughed and clapped with him.
I was beloved. I had been hoped for. Somehow I was necessary.
He fell down beside me. “Come, Isha! Will you climb the far hills? Will you eat figs and cucumber? Will you see the onager and the wolf?”
“Yes.” I did not know the onager from the wolf or the fig from the cucumber. Again:
Gratitude.
I am the treasure mined from the rock, the gem prized from the mount.
He stirred only when I did and released me with great reluctance. By then the sun had moved along the length of our valley. My stomach murmured.
He led me to the orchard and fed me the firm flesh of plums, biting carefully around the pits and feeding the pieces to me until juice ran down our chins and bees came to sample it. He kissed my fingers and hands and laid his cheek against my palms.
That evening we lay in a bower of hyssop and rushes—a bower, I realized, that he must have made on a day before this one.
A day before I existed.
We observed together the changing sky as it cooled gold and russet and purple, finally anointing the clay earth red.
Taken from me. Flesh of my flesh. At last. I heard the timbre of his voice in my head in my last waking moment. Marvel and wonder were upon his lips as he kissed my closing eyes.
I knew then he would do anything for me.
THAT NIGHT I DREAMED of blackness. Black, greater than the depths of the river or the great abyss beneath the lake.
From within that nothingness came a voice that was not a voice, that was neither sound nor word but volition and command and genesis. And from the voice, a word that was no word but the language of power and fruition.
There! A mote spark—a light first so small as the tip of a pine needle. It exploded past the periphery of my dreaming vision, obliterating the dark. The heavens were vast in an instant, stretching without cease to the edges of eternity.
I careened past new bodies that tugged me in every direction; even the tiniest particles possessed their own gravity. From each of them came the same concert, that symphony of energy and light.
I came to stand upon the earth. It was a great welter of water, the surface of it ablaze with the refracted light of heavens upon heavens. It shook my every fiber, like a string that is plucked and allowed to resonate forever.
I was galvanized, made anew, thrumming that inaugural sound: the yawning of eternity.
Amidst it all came the unmistakable command:
Wake!
2
Blue. Was I made anew? Bird flight perforated my line of sight. I closed my eyes, aware of the form against me, of the slow rise and fall of his chest, the heavy warmth of his arm over me.
I waited for something. I had woken with an ache like hunger that had nothing to do with food.
I need you. It was longing and craving and declaration all at once.
I Am. It came not from the man, but the One whose voice was far gentler and more awesome—a voice for whispering the heavens to life.
I shivered. The man beside me stirred and drew me closer.
After a while I drifted back to sleep, anxious for nothing. Wanting for nothing.
But still, somehow, desiring more.
THE ADAM MADE HIS bed in the foothills. That morning I learned why: the grasses and heath of the valley floor were damp and spongy underfoot as they had not been the night before.
This time he woke before me. Fingertips drifted over my shoulder, my cheek, my brow. The arm beneath me cradled my head.
I opened my eyes. His were already intent upon me. “There is knowledge in your eyes that was not there before.” Wonder sang in his words.
I have seen the making of the heavens.
He drew a sharp breath, lifted my fingers to his lips.
My sustainer, my counterpart. Given as the One has said. To you are known the mysteries of creation!
He jumped up and shouted his jubilance to the sky. He stomped the earth and clapped his hands. I laughed and clapped with him.
I was beloved. I had been hoped for. Somehow I was necessary.
He fell down beside me. “Come, Isha! Will you climb the far hills? Will you eat figs and cucumber? Will you see the onager and the wolf?”
“Yes.” I did not know the onager from the wolf or the fig from the cucumber. Again:
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