The Secret Ministry of the Moon

The Secret Ministry of the Moon

Cool breeze from behind me whispers

From the dark, over my exposed ears

While frogs and bugs speak vespers

Of Mother Earth’s trickling tears…

These deepest and highest mysteries

Of the body zoom away

Upon every Merry Little Breeze

That escapes the day…

For the Moon’s ancient name: Soma—

Has 100 trillion rounded cells that all remember and each

Is complex and comes-and-goes

From bruised clouds your gentled hands can teach…

Each time you smile at me

The universal becomes specific

As moonlight sets us free

And living becomes terrific.

Poetry is a sacred calling

From void-to-void, souls lost

Recall the fires of Mr. Coleridge—

His breath made visible by

The secret ministry of frost.

Bugs dance to-and-from

The brilliance of my brow

And I wonder—must we sacrifice something alive

To make art? Or is it quite the opposite, in that

We defy death and create in that place

’Twixt love and fear

Where all stars blaze as meteors

And all that we know

Is breathing unaware

Of anything but the flow?

The gentle yet relentless wind

Picks up on the brow of the blind hill—

Then strokes invisible hands along forest tops

Until, until…

I’m breathing still at this end of the forest track;

And Brother Moon goes down in the west

Behind my back.

4.2.12