The Breath of Allah

Summer hasn't left just yet, but the signs are unmistakable that she's been seeing somebody else.

She still comes over, but she arrives later and later and leaves earlier and earlier. Even at times when she may feel as warm as she ever was, she seems somehow distant. Her body's here, but her spirit is somewhere else. Her smiles become forced. She laughs too loud and too long at your jokes, which aren't nearly that funny, trying to pretend nothing's changed, but being a lousy liar.

You want to tell her it's all right.
That everything runs its course and when it's time, it's time.
Move on.

But you don't tell her.

Partly because you can't bear the thought of the look it will put in her eyes, and partly because, somewhere deep inside, you know it's better if she figures it out for herself.

So maybe you go out to the paddock one night, just after moonrise, the light from that huge pearl turning night almost into day. As soon as the languid wind carries your scent up the hill, he prances over to you, knowing full well you always have an apple in your pocket.
He munches his tribute in two slobbery bites, and, that formality concluded, gives his mane a shake. You hold your face close to his a moment or two, breathing into his nostrils and breathing in his moist breath in return.

"What's up, Jack?" he nickers.

A sigh is the only appropriate reply.

"Got the blues, huh?"

You say nothing, gaze up at the full moon, feeling in your every cell the profound appropriateness of the word "lunacy."

He nuzzles your elbow. "Want to go for a ride?"

The thought of going back, dragging all that tack over and putting it on, suddenly seems like an unreasonable chore, demanding far more energy than you have.

"Fuck it," he says, as if reading your mind. "Come on, let's just go."

And "let's just go" is exactly what you need.
Where, doesn't matter.

You strip off your clothes, tossing your stuff carelessly against a fence post, until you're down to bare skin. Your nakedness stirs up the wind's curiosity and she comes over and kisses all the places that she usually doesn't get to kiss, making them vibrate with life. There must be rough debris under your feet, but you don't feel it. As far as you're concerned, it's like walking on a plush carpet.

He offers you his mane and you grab a handful of it, pivot back for a good lead-off, and swing up onto his back. You find your spot, letting your legs go into those places behind his shoulders, where they fit so perfectly, you'd think they were created with this in mind.
Who knows?
Maybe they were.

You sink deeply onto him, into him, feeling the soft bumps of his spine wedge up between your glutes, and against the back of your scrotum. The heat of him seeps into your inner thighs and fills you up. The night air, so much cooler, alights on your skin like a butterfly.

And you just go.

The thud of his hoof-beats shinnies up your spine and your core begins to vibrate to that rhythm like a tuning fork.

Then the strangest thing happens: you start to melt.

Like a candle left in the hot sun. But this sun is coming from under you. Your legs melt into his legs, pounding the earth in a sacred dance; your hips melt into his hips and you can feel the powerful surge of your rump, with your maleness swaggering with every step; your arms melt into his neck, your hands become his head.
Now, you're just a little lump on his back, feeling the wind in your face as you fly through the night like a witch to the sabbat.

Along the old logging road you race, propelled by raw elation, instinctively ducking and dodging to avoid tree limbs, splashing through the shallow stream in the ancient riverbed, sailing effortlessly over a rotting tree trunk, bent low in homage across your path.

Up Bald Hill you climb, up, up to the very top, like Rocky running up those stairs, and once there, you snort and blow, and triumphantly call out your name to the stars.
Your heart pounding like a war drum, you circle around in your victory dance, stepping high and strong and proud, overflowing with the sheer joy of doing so perfectly what the creator made you to do.

In that moment, it isn't that you KNOW God.

In that moment, you ARE God.