Tsarsa Poem by Peter Russell

Your tiny body like a little bird -
I want to hold it in my arms
And stoke your pretty feathers one by one
And kiss the golden down upon your neck

O it's absurd!
I want to kiss your little finger-tips
And feel your fragile bones within my grasp
To touch your slender naked toes with mine
And feel your delicate knees against me

And then your lips!
I want to press them ardently
On fire with - can it be with - Love?
To hold your narrow hands all night
And all next day, until we grow -

Don't laugh at me!
Like root and flower, each into each -
I be your root and you my flower
And I your flower and you my root
Deep in the earth, yet leaping like the sun

Until we reach
Earth's centre and the Empyrean at once
Each buried in the other and yet flying
Like two bright birds free in the air
Calling like nightingales to one another -

Our bodies linked eternally by speech