These old stories have as many meanings as there are stars in the sky. To assign one single interpretation to them is to miss the point.
I'm a happy camper when I'm doing both: writing and art every day, along with a dose of reading and adventures into what else is being done by other artists/writers and poets. Like breathing.
His throat like oiled olive, his warm arms smell / not of rut and vinegar, but resin and stillness / disturbed, the hot light filtering on the beeches / and river-veins, the muddied onyx