last full moon of the year

last moon of the year

Given our way of tracking

days, moon,

given the weight of time that seeps

then rises amidst what’s green,

what’s stone, what’s pushed

up through all that’s packed against

the grass,  against the visage

of winter’s gravid demand,

the full of you is immersed 

as you've always been, below

this copse, between

these bare fingered maples

 and into, from where I’m living now,

a perfect, well augured

tomb.  Even if I took

my first step down into it,

to finally at some end stand

inside its somehow still fresh

depth, the you that sunk there,

the you I put to rest there

 would, in true Jesus

stile, be gone, and those

linens limp against

the raw embankment.

No: why

seek ye the living

among the dead,

no I have not yet

ascended—

Because you have.

And so.

I do what every mother,

whose child has gone,

whose clothes are still soft

  with them, would do:

raise them up cupped,  palms

a split breast, 

up

to my face to drink

as though this were the only

thing I knew, the only thing

I would hereafter know,

the perfume of this birth and death

 mixed with every breath

an ebbing force surrenders to.

to listen. entirely.

moon,

let’s just listen

today.  let’s still

our clotted tongue

and keep,

 keep deeply.

our vigil.  because someone

someone,

somewhere, has their dark

descending—

and their lamps

are unlit,

or are charred,

are long-wicked
when lit,

are bilges of soot…

let’s say nothing.

  we have

listening

to do—

and then we have sifting

to do—

moon,

you are god enough

to know when the house

has burned,

has finally fallen

room by room

into itself,

and all the heat of it

has risen

has sunk…

please.

let’s, when asked,

come with our thin mesh,

come with our ear,

come with our tongue,

to shake through

to catch

to wash

stroke after stroke

the story the story the story

each little shard

whispers to us

and then let’s oh let’s

fall on our knees

for each one of them.