waning

By natural

selection, the word

originates its species,

                                    the blood flowers,

…

and small birds scavenge

                in the chaste late winter grass.

            “Winter Mornings in Charlottesville”

                                Robert Hass

But moon, I’m thinking

I should stop looking

for you.  I’m thinking

I should turn away,

that I should be the one, now,

to do the waning.

Moon…

did you know?

my cheek’s been scared

since I was four.  The family

dog bit me there.  He turned me

inside out.  I was alone

with him.  Maybe what poured

out of me and onto the grass

he licked clean

when I finally

got free and ran

home.

But maybe not.  Maybe

the blood and skin

dried against August’s

sun and he lay panting

beneath the shade

of that birch he was chained to,

birch whose morning

you set against,

summer after summer, when I

come home again.

 

The dog

was shot not long

after my face was sewn.

Sometimes (but I couldn’t be

 there

so I can’t know

for sure)

I imagine he went into the woods

ahead of my father

and sat when he was told

and looked up

and then turned his jaw

away, as though the mean

in him had finally

been set free. 

Bullets are the sounds

of endings, aren’t they?

I don’t have a gun, moon—

but the woods are still there,

and the path into them.

I think I’ll go

and try to find my dog.

I think you cannot come

along.  I think

when I come out

on the other side

you may be there

and you may ask

how I’ve been

and you may reach

for my cheek...

and before

I would have leaned

 forward. I would have.

But you hesitated.

You hesitated.

the rain. the condensed gray. and then the wine.

moon—

I’ve opened the door

for you.  But rain.  Rain

and the breaking apart

of dark that stays

dark.  What would the sky

look like if I could see

it?  From this floor

 I can only guess

at day, an ink wash

across paper

but listen: the thunder and wind

and what dripped

through the ceiling, it's caught

now in a small bucket.

—It's rain I want to drink

after all these early days

because the door is wide 

to you and you

not there—

I’m a different sort

of thirsty now.

Maybe I’m on the wrong

side of the world.  I know what's obvious.

the Mevlana and Li Po tell me

 how to be

about leaving.  Breathing

out.  Bowing to the bowing

monk.  Catching water

the winemaker turns

to wine.

Is there a moon-wine moon?

A wine entirely of you?

I want to hold it

in the cup

of my tongue.

I won’t spill a drop.

Trust me.  I’ll hold it for so long

that swallowing it

will be a new distilling

and once n my blood…

well, only you

 and I can know,

only you

and I

the hush of it

one:

moon—the truth is

I’m more like you

than I’m wanted

 to be.

This hush

 of you.

  It’s like the ache

of the wait

 of a cube

of sugar,

 sweating a letting

go into an afternoon

that’s been too humid

for hot tea—

but anticipates

it all the same: the formal

 linen, small spoon.  The music

of dissolving.   The all of it a going out

to the rim and bumping back

again, entirely the same,

entirely different.

two:

moon, sometimes

 I want the plunge

 of you

 to close over me

the way it did that summer

I was nine

and the Oarweed

floated like a girl’s

 long hair and I went

 beneath it all

and saw

 how I had to begin living

in a house

of noise. 

Surfacing

 was arduous

through the tangled

hair, the tide pushing

in…

three:

Drowning’s quiet,

isn’t it moon.

  It’s the coming up

that's loud.

The surged push of it.

The alone of it.

The utter blabber

and screech of it.

It seems an eruption

 of secrecy,

especially when

the sweet’s been

dissolved in a too large cup

 and is poured out in a trough

for the gluttonous

to slurp and let drip

down their chins.

The stain on the linen

 is a teak brown,

the brown I saw

'round the rim

of my open eyes

when I came back

 up split

with that ebbing hush.

The oarweed had drifted

 away.

And nobody noticed.

nobody

noticed.

Do I Dream Too Much? Too Little?

moon—

I searched for you,

but I was too late—

the constellations who remained,

and Jupiter, they sang

about you, how in the dark

over this house

while I slept

you arced and let down

your light at the foot

of my bed.  Penetrating light.

You went through

the roof.

Was it then

I dreamed that I was

in Ireland?  And had been there

in someone else’s skin

many times before?  Everything

smelled familiar old.  Old

was the woman who served

us tea.

She still burned

peat and coal-oil.  Her home

was old cold stone

whose pipes stitched up

the outside walls

and leaked slowly,

turning the mortar

green.  You’ve seen it

I know.

You’d followed me there

and when we met I held

your hand

in the narrow alley.

The high walls were cracked,

crooked triangles

of moss.

For once  we weren’t afraid

of bandits.

It seems we hadn’t seen

each other in a long,

long time.

A long time.

You took my crying with you

in a green glass flask.

I went home,

dry and alone. 

  Your lips

were salty

when you left.

Now that this night has almost

surrendered, the noise

of it is letting go.

And soon:

birds and day.  I should

have come out earlier. 

I should be less

sentimental.  I should

disguise myself

as a man

and go to Jerusalem

and find a small hole

at the Temple

Mount and I should empty

my pockets there.  Or maybe empty

them back 

 in Ireland.  Where

the bandits are.

And my people.  Buried.

And your hand

in that dream…

Razed

His greatest alchemy

is how he undoes

the binding

that keeps love from breathing

deep.

He loosens the chest.

                                                Rumi

moon, there’s the mist

again.  Up from the river

up from the sea

that always,

 this one at least,

flows north,

  It's our own personal

 Nile.

Some mornings

I’ve come to wonder

if I need to be

pinched

by sound

or some sifted scent

to bring you here,

before the Lazarus

in me will turn to the mouth

of the tomb

and feel his feet

begin to itch.

Whole suns, somewhere,

are exploding.

But who has noticed?

Who has turned

their head up to it all

and ached

when the remote

solar breath

breaks apart their bone

stones, and then settles

beneath, inside of them,

pushing up the seed? 

This stark glint

inside the cleft

  is ageless.

I’m not sure

 how to absorb to its

brevity.

Is it light?

Sound?

 Or something more

solid? A paused

 pair

of lips

whose glossed edges

are eager

to be kissed

before they speak?

Or is it a deeper

penetration

entirely,

liquefying everything,

 even the ‘come forth’ call,

until the darkening

of space

and then the full wind enters

and is spilled

And is stilled.

Least Bittern

Still drunk, I got up to walk on the moon

in the water…

The birds had all gone to nest;

humans, also, had grown few.

                                                  Li Po

the rain’s still,

and the mist is gone...

in the olive leaves

a setting

 crescent

moon—

what’s not lost:

our moon

was full

when I arrived

and full again

when I departed

somewhere

beneath it all

the smallest between

the grass and reeds

in the water

marshes:

the

impossibly alluring curve

 of a bittern.

small heron,

I’ve never

seen you here.

but I want to.

if you’re here

so am I.

like the tide.

without regrets—

and the long walk

into you

is punctured

by a song,

throaty

and low.

but I’m so new

to you

I’m not sure

I’m just not sure.

F-L-I-G-H-T

 moon—

when shock comes from the bottom

up, when the solid cliff

shifts,

and the only railing

is air

I have to pause

 on it

and it bears me until

my boot finds something

a little wider than itself

and then holds on

and says okay, it’s okay

now, you can

let go.

Who really believes,

ascending,

that they’ll fall?

  The climb

is hand over hand

pull up the knee

scrape the face of the wall

and purchase

a hold—

listen: a cascade

of stones tumbles

into the tide

far enough below

that living

is suspicious

and when I hear them

collect and then settle,

they are

a small flock

of plovers

pausing

Later I watch a gull

fall straight down

to the beach

and hover over the water

and then float on it.

What sudden surrender

allows a bird its air

and then, just as purposed,

its slip? 

But remember I am not a bird.

I am not even a moon

though I’d like to be

sometimes,

when cliffs let go

and I step out

into air…

I’m just too solid for anything

other than

falling.

And so I go back

alone,

when my children

aren't playing

below me.

I go to different,

higher cliffs.

Smoother edges.

I lean against bare

air

and feel absolute-

ly no resistance,

just solid

nothing.

the sea

 is a remote guess

below me

and a far off lobster boat

makes halos

around a buoy.

Gulls bob in the wake

of swallowed bait,

too greedy

for the next scrap

of gutts

to fly off alone

have you ever not

moon—

 

have you ever

not  written a poem simply

because you wanted

to keep it all

to yourself?

or keep its magic

from breaking

open?

and have you ever

let yourself

 absorb some

 of what you’re reflecting

just to feel it

take root

 there,

just there,

off a little ways

from dead

center

where you always wanted

it to be?

After Li Po's Bright Moon, White Clouds

Gazing down again to find the path 

I’d come, I found, finally, 

only a chill darkness…

But you met me just there,

and led me home…

                                                    Li Po

                moon—

won’t you share a drop

of tea with me?

I’ve been gifted

these brilliant

cups…

roses and china

a thin porcelain

of bone

they wait for your face

as on the surfaces

of falling

rain

unveil your cloud

there is enough

for all of us

the river rises

moon,

the river rises

in mist

behind  alders

and birch

while the sun,

open-mouthed,

spreads

the skirts

of the unharvested.

soon,

 the gray

that rises

 will vanish.

soon

the night

will vie

for its hours

 again

and all the sky

pass by—

it has been hot

these past days

and I wonder:

do the trees

miss the snow?

Do they ask

their cool

roots about

the silk of

the river?

and do the roots,

penetrating

    the impacted

 dark

ask their branches

about the sun

and the live flight

of birds?