A Natural Hunger

Ah, the taste of meat!
How rich, how dear!

I had deluded myself so long...
So long...
My days of pasta and greens,
Bread and citrus
Had deluded me,
And yet I always knew...

So many years without the taste
Of warmth and vigor,
Salt and sinew,
Red juices running down my tongue;
So long I had deluded myself...

Having forsaken flesh
To become holy, purified,
A severed spirit,
Divinely deluded
So long...

Now, I am one with the lion,
One with the wolf,
And the true divinity is revealed,
Predator and prey, the strange symbiosis.
The universal hunger,
Fervid in its arousal,
Tranquil in its fulfillment.

George Chadderdon © 1993