To Catch a Young Moon
"If you live in Northern Hemisphere...you might
be able to catch an exceedingly young lunar crescent..."
-- EarthSky, April 22, 2012
The almanac portends weather, seed-time and harvest,
and all phases of the moon like a book of poetry.
But there will be no catching of a young moon.
Time counts. And the moon never looks away.
Night after night after night in its never-looking-away,
its not-so-young face is counterfeit in all earth's mirrors.
It was matched on the waves of ancient seas, before
the swarming ammonites perished, before
the herds of hadrosaurs were lost. It was there
in the dew of Cretaceous forests, when mammoths
roamed the grasslands of Colorado.
Its dry seas were reflected upon the farther shores
of the Colosseum, in the drowning eyes of
Naiumachiari in their sinking battleships,
and in the dream-blinded eyes of Jeanne d'Arc
crying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
The same moon. The same moon broken in the
moving ripples of Bull Run. The same moon
luminous as a spotlight over the naked bodies
of a million Jews who died in ditches, with their
eyes open. The same moon caught in the sleepless
eyes of lovers, lustrous on their naked shoulders
and thighs, their long limbs touching. The same moon
flashing on their smiles. The band plays,
Pink Floyd breathes: If your head explodes
with dark forebodings I'll see you on the dark side
of the moon. Their lips whisper in it's fettered light,
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
JED 5-1-12
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About Me
- Joyce Ellen Davis
- 1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair. 2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde. 3. My back hurts. 4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!) 5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once. 6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....) 7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't. 8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this. 9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME. 10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12. I am a poet and a writer. All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.
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