Poem: The Moon's Question

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The Moon's Question

The half-cut moon gleams across the dock
like a riddle of God, and I, a sphinx, guard

the entrance. On the lake’s shore, bound
in soil, a stone shines, a pearl in the dark,

like the tensile eye of Isaac from the altar,
bulging, uncloven, watching for an angel

to illumine the question of surrender, at the
moment of fullness when two realities exist —

one rising, shining, alive, and one falling back,
hidden, the seemingly silent side of the moon.

Illustration of the moonhair woman by Arthur Rackham

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'A Distant City': Moving is done

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The view from Brian & Lesley's new apartment in Michigan;

that's a corn field on the horizon;

see the brown grass, the need for rain;

rain was light while we unloaded the truck,

then it let loose in a full-clapping thunderstorm welcome

when the helpers had gone home

I want to thank you for your kind wishes, thoughts and prayers for the Big Move. They bore fruit. The immense heat broke in a gentle rain Sunday night in NYC, before we packed the truck to the gills Monday. Then the rain held off while we loaded, letting loose again while we drove out of the city that afternoon. The drive through five states, including Pennsylvania, where veils of gauzy mist demurely covered the shoulders of the Poconos, was uneventful and easy. (I fell in love with Lesley & Brian’s VW Jetta, hardly letting Lesley drive; the guys drove the moving truck.) Yesterday, unloading with family in Michigan into their roomy apartment was exquisitely sweaty and leg-aching (third floor, no elevator).

Now the four of us (five with Poppy Seed, who is now the size of an apple; imagine, trading one Apple for another in one day!) are resting and recuperating at the lake for a few days. It is raining on this cottage’s tin roof in the early morning dark. I hear it patting oak leaves that surround us, insisting we stay indoors and sleep: Don’t move unless you absolutely have to. Moving is done.

 Their balcony is more like a porch, deep and partially covered.

Lesley's plants emigrated safely from a NYC windowsill

and now sit bookended by potted herbs and a tomato plant

we grew on the farm. Rain. The plants revel, as we do.

The Queens kitchen they left behind, with its street view;

that's the windowsill where the plants lived

(this photo was taken last year)

In my glad hours, I will make a city of your smile, 
a distant city that shines and lives.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from "In My Glad Hours"

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I don't wanna miss a thing

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I'm going to be away for a brief little while, moving our daughter, her husband and our gestating grandbabe from NYC to Michigan. My gleeps know no bounds.

Don't do anything while I'm away. I don't wanna miss a thing.

POMPLAMOOSE DOES AEROSMITH

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Poem: The earth's economy

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The earth's economy

Just when I thought the day
had nothing left to give,
when heat was ladled across
the shallow dry plate

of the nation, working or not, alive
or not, my country
road home from work
an affair of sour radio news and roadkill —

the furred skunk, possum, cat,
squirrel, raccoon, in the
special economy of the outward-
facing nose, lost in final scent,

the surrendered open mouth,
forehead pressed back in frozen
tragedy, tension gone, time done,
appetite dissolving into skull —

I find myself at the kitchen counter
in a different Americana, tearing
kale ruffles from their spines
for a chilled supper of greens with lemon

and oil, Dijon, garlic, cucumber —
live, wet and impossibly cool from the
earth garden just outside the door,
where the farmer’s wife one hundred

years ago also opened her apron
like a cradle, gingerly receiving
into thin billowing cotton pockets
as much as she could carry

as much as she could carry

Listen to a podcast of this poem here.

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