2021 Moon Series – 10/2/21

Waning Cresent – 8:45 pm

there’s no moon in my tiny square of sky
but the stars are sharp and bright
and comforting
the starlight, a memory
just now reaching me
as I sit here on this second night
(having missed the first one)
and wonder if I, too, am just a memory
perhaps shining over some vast dreamscape
to manifest here, in my yard
as a dream of myself

maybe it’s all been a wild
endless fantasy – this life
and her life too

what keeps us tethered
to the construct of our reality?
perhaps someone is dreaming me
reading an essay or story or poem
that survived across a heavy burden of years

maybe I only think I’m real
much like the stars in tonight’s
velvet soft sky
looking, for all their dazzling splendor,
as if they’re more real than the moon




pandemic winter

in the gap between seasons
in this absence of time
in the soft quiet of snow days
of moments paused
of the choice we make between
embracing the lull or railing against it
I am not at rest

it’s been too long
we all know that

once the world starts
like an car, revving and sputtering
emerging with a quiet hum
the warm engine purring
I might move forward

I won’t know
all the things I’ve forgotten

I won’t feel bad
that the horizon is gone
no longer centered
in my field of vision
the soft pink glow
of the sunrise
I’ll hardly miss it

Mom

I missed you today
so I took you with me
into all the quiet pauses of my day
and instead of grumbling at the traffic
listened to that song you like
and waited in line
patient for once
picturing you there with me
I walked with you, in my mind,
the thirty feet to the mailbox
imagining your reaction
to the spring greens that curl
from every branch
laughing at the tulips
that I didn’t plant

at the park I told the kids
about how grandma
is the best swing pusher
and dandelion picker
every picture I snapped
was for your benefit
even the gentle spring rain
reminded me of you
so much more a friend
than a mother

Moon Series 2020 – Day 7

10/7/20 – 11:00 pm – Waning Gibbous (after the VP debate)

Maybe I’m finally done
writing about the moon
and celestial things
and all the ways the night sky
can be personified

Maybe I’m done
with simile and metaphor
and all the profound epiphanies
of poetic inspiration

or maybe it’s just this stolen year
as empty as a glass ornament

soon we’ll be thrust
into the cold grasp of winter
with its grey skies
and blank mountains

October is waving goodbye
crying rufous tears
as the trees blaze, ignored
and the birds migrate through
there’s no use trying to hold
onto all this splendor

I understand futility
but I’m not proud of this

Moon Series 2020 – Day 3

10/3/20 – 9:35 pm – Waning Gibbous

the waning gibbous is uncertain
on this clear, dark, October night
feeling our exhaustion
as if the aging year
didn’t exist

each month hangs unchanged
except for the waxing and waning
while the sky keeps a record
of this blank time

I’m uninspired by the the night
grasping for enlightenment
in a passionless sky
maybe it’s too easy to see the moon
full and exposed, so early
as if time meant something

this year feels
like a wasted opportunity

Overly Concerned

The trails are as cracked
as chapped skin
and in my yard
the bird bath keeps running dry
while 3,000 miles away
California burns, again
and the dog won’t stop
chewing his tail

I’m consumed with worry
fixated on making it better
paying my taxes
as the jobs tumble away
swirling down drains
disappearing into couch cushions

we are, all of us
bereft

while they play house
on their shiny boats
with their shiny fish
they bought with stolen promises
built on skin, shiny and white
and flowing hair
shiny and clean
but their hands are dirty

Withdrawal

I miss how it rolled in
peeling me away from reality
like the skin of a snake
discarded and separate
that’s how I wanted to be
preserved, abandoned
my life, glacial and still
unchanged

until the climate shifted
and monolithic slabs
tumbled into the too-warm sea
making mountainous waves
in that shapeless place
where I thought
everything was just fine
because
why should time move forward?

I held part of myself
motionless for far too long
I’ve been so afraid

My Rebirth

I hope I’m reborn
into the body of a hummingbird
to live a short life of flight
to own long journeys
to drink the vibrancy
of things that bloom
consuming the sweetness
of purple salvia
orange bee balm
scarlet hibiscus
drawn to the cherry red plastic
of a million feeders
dangling from windows
and hooks
as I surf and glide
the thick air currents
that carry me from moment
to moment
until the day I fall, like hail
from the empty sky

The Drive

I drove into the August blush
on roads that hung suspended
from the memory of dreams
that flickered deep within
the foliage of my unconscious mind

I drove on roads
lined with backlit hours
their amber windows
pulsing like beating hearts
and wondered
when is a dream
not a dream?

I drove past porches
where wooden rockers
with brown sisal webbing
held the promise
of your longed-for face

I dreamt we sat
and sipped our tea
with the endless, unfolding green
while the winding road
wrapped itself around us
passing us by
and finally
finally
I was free
from the in between

2020

the May moon is so full
it holds the entire sky
as the world bakes
beneath the broken promise
of this broken year

empty calendars
hold empty days
as scattered and random
as the evening stars

May’s moon
is used to isolation
quarantined from the seasons
modeling fullness
in the blank, unplanned
chaos of space