THE CACTUS DAHLIA by MIGUEL for ROSITA paintography and photography by MICHAEL (miguel) DINNER WITH ROSITA AND MIGUEL Written by Miguel for Rosita FROM WITHIN THE HEAVENS by Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin (translated by Miguel León-Portilla) From within the heavens they come, the beautiful flowers, the beautiful songs, but our yearning spoils them, our inventiveness makes them lose their fragrance, although not those of the Chichimec prince Tecayehuatzin. With his, rejoice! Friendship is a shower of precious flowers White tufts of heron feathers are woven with precious red flowers, among the branches of the trees under which stroll and sip the lords and nobles Your beautiful song is a golden wood thrush most beautiful, you raise it up. You are in a field of flowers. Among the flowery bushes you sing. Are you perchance a precious bird of the Giver of Life? Perchance you have spoken with God? As soon as you saw the dawn, you began to sing. Would that I exert myself that my heart desires, the flowers of the shield, the flowers of the Giver of Life. What can my heart do? In vain we have come, we have blossomed forth on earth. Will I have to go alone like the flowers that perish? Will nothing remain of my name? Nothing of my fame here on earth? At least my flowers, at least my songs! What can my heart do? In vain we have come, we have blossomed forth on earth. Let us enjoy, O friends, here we can embrace. We stroll over the flowery earth. No one here can do away with the flowers and the songs, they will endure in the house of the Giver of Life Earth is the region of the fleeting moment. Is it also thus in the Place Where in Some Way One Lives? Is one happy there? Is there friendship? Or is it only here on earth we come to know our faces? Miguel read this poem to Rosita as she prepared the Chile Rellenos en Nogados The special chilies poblanos that are stuffed with queso fresco, the fresh lovely cheese and covered with the crema de walnuts and Decorated with the fruit of the pomegranate and cilantro fresh from our garden. Rosita is preparing to go bathe and has put the chilies in the orno, the oven and I am sautéing the huitlacoche, the truffles of the corn. She first goes to walk through the corn after making the fresh green corn tamales with the cheese of Oaxaca and wrapped in fresh leaves of corn. I know that she walks through the corn on her way to the creek and lays in the dew of the evening to purify herself; I have watched her and caught the moon reflecting from her breasts We have cooked together tonight and now I set the table with the best pottery and cobalt glasses for the Vino Santo, the wine I make with the 5 wild berries for these nights of seduction. Tonight as she roasted the chilies on the Comal, I kissed her from behind and nuzzled the tendrils of hair on her neck. She leaned into me as if faint and I felt the veins in her neck pounding from her heart like the heaving chest of my stallion as I ride like the fastest wind. She turns and our lips meet and she is reluctant to close her eyes and she looks so deeply into mine, her eyes of emeralds. As we explore the mouths of each other our bodies become one, a monument to the devotion we feel. There is a stirring within us that is ancient and holy and we reluctantly part to finish the sacrament of this dinner. She leaves the casa and lays in the dew of the corn to cleanse herself and then in the beams of the moon pours pure water over her self and begins to rub the various fragrant flowers on her body that she has secreted by the well. The heady plumeria, the citrus rose, the cactus dahlia And more that I have no knowledge of. She rubs them in different zones of her body that I might be afforded a vacation through a mystical garden in the hammock of matrimony later when the feast is done. When she returns to the casa, I have shaved with my razor so honed and used the scented cologne that my amigo has sent me from the Americas and that Rosita loves. I am dressed in pure white with the sash that will be untied by Rosita in her haste as soon as the last bite of sugar grilled pineapple is down my throat and she pounces on me as a panther and pulls me to the hammock where I begin to smell all of the garden she has on her and dew of the corn as her comisa leaves her body like a cloud floating to the floor. And now it is time for me to leave my body to hers as she takes me for a journey all men must have once in their lives. The journey of the woman taking the man. I have never been loved so deeply and tirelessly and all of my senses are satiated, my taste, my smell, my eyes, my rough hands on her body of silk, all full of her wanting me. It is a most wondrous thing to love someone so deeply…but to know that someone loves you with finality, with the fullness of her being is the gift of the Gods. Tonight I read her the poem again after she took me, that my grandmother left me behind a painting she made for our wedding, that I have found today and Rosita has tears of joy running down her cheeks and I kiss them away as I read and all words become her, all my world becomes her. She has taken me on the journey, which only a woman can take a man. Written by Miguel 2007 Before returning to the Gulfo