Rexroth's late afternoon love poem

"When We With Sappho"

Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.
Your grace is as beautiful as a sleep.

You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird-filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.



Sufis say there are three ways of being with the mystery: prayer, then a step up from that, meditation, and a step up from that, conversation, the mystical exchange they call sohbet.