Then I clothed myself with raiment of Damascus, and I left my house and walked towards Him.
Was it my aloneness, or was it His fragrance, that drew me to Him? Was it a hunger in my eyes that desired comeliness, or was it His beauty that sought the light of my eyes?
Even now I do not know.
I walked to Him with my scented garments and my golden sandals, the sandals the Roman captain had given me, even these sandals. And when I reached Him, I said: “Good-morrow to you.”
And He said: “Good-morrow to you, Miriam.”
And He looked at me, and His night-eyes saw me as no man had seen me. And suddenly I was as if naked, and I was shy.
Yet He had only said: “Good-morrow to you.”
And then I said to Him: “Will you not come to my house?”
And He said: “Am I not already in your house?”
I did not know what He meant then, but I know now.
And I said: “Will you not have wine and bread with me?”
And He said: “Yes, Miriam, but not now.”
Not now, not now , He said. And the voice of the sea was in those two words, and the voice of the wind and the trees. And when He said them unto me, life spoke to death.
For mind you, my friend, I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged