DESIRE

It will open slowly, a night flower:

The moon’s long fingers stroking your bare arms,

The courtyard with its jasmine breath

And all the warmth of blood.

This is the time

When bamboo knots in the night fields,

When girls uncurl from roman frescoes,

Liquid as shadows, smelling of flowers and wine.

It would not take so long

If it did not rise from such pure depths:

A memory of what we must become,

The city in its lace of lights, the bay alive with sails.

It is within you, waiting,

The simple energy of evening growing all day

To this : the moon burning in your hair,

Sent from an enclosed garden, the whites of your eyes.

Kevin John Hart

Kevin John Hart (born 5 July 1954) is a British-Australian theologian, philosopher and poet. He is currently Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia. As a theologian and philosopher, Hart's work epitomizes the "theological turn" in phenomenology, with a focus on figures like Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida. He has received multiple awards for his poetry, including the Christopher Brennan Award and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry twice.