The Moon Nurse
Someone must guard the moon
deep in the Dreamer's long shatter.
Someone must keep clear her pathway
mirror'd on the wavering water.
Someone must nurse the moon
when the red plague slips in without trace.
While Time ticks to its last empty hour
let my hands refresh her pale face,
wash it with rosemary's greening,
herb airless void with white smoke
between her and the storm oncoming
where light itself is revoked.
All the nights she's held watch above me
by the bed where sleep loses its way,
the silver songs she's sung me
put a debt on me I must repay.
They say she poisons the fallen
who ravage across the wide earth,
or stare in electrical cages
where madness has gone to give birth
but those
she brings whole through the hunter's dark
burn tonight her evanescent spark.
November 2021
posted for Poetics
Note: this poem has been revised a dozen times since posting, and I'm still not happy with it. It didn't rhyme at all at first, and now it rhymes too much. I blame Poe, whom I've been rereading WAY too much lately.
Images: ©Dmitry Brodetsky All Rights Reserved Fair Use
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Outstanding, and I imagine the moon being nursed and my own nursing from the moon. Truly magical.
ReplyDeleteThis is lovely. I especially like the lines Sanaa quotes.
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing and sharing. :)
ReplyDeleteI admire your unique voice and perspective of the moon as if we are actively watching and nursing the moon, and guarding her spark. It works both ways and it is magical.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Grace. I loved yours.
DeleteI love how you've managed to compose a lyrical and magical poem, full of romance yet containing only concrete imagery. Great work with the prompt!
ReplyDeleteThe poet - and poetry -- still has an essential role, even today (though it seems a measly occupation, like freighting garbage or mucking toilets). What the dream offers is beyond words much less comprehension, yet someone's gotta train an ear to its moon-wall and spoon its sea. What I learned from trying to survive whiskey is that the spirit which cures spirits is available if I do the surrender-work: we are the janitors which sweep away the day's jangle and riot to the floor might still gleam with old queen moon. And most perilous is that it's an inside job: "Someone must nurse the moon / when the red plague slips in without trace." The thing of darkness I must call my own The "evanescent spark" is just beyond the last words of this poem, and that is found by all its preceding surrenders. Amen.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. This has been a beast to spit out, and it's still far from there, but that is exactly the heart of it.
DeleteIf Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Alice Cooper wrote a poem together, this might be it! That opening stanza by itself is worth the figurative price of admission. First, just the notion that the moon might need guarding is fresh and striking and makes your reader eager to keep reading. Then there is the sheer delight of the sound of the words throughout the poem. But, it's still that opening strophe, if you'll allow the term here, that fascinates me and makes me want to keep returning to it. It's gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Shay. Appreciate your feel for it, and your feedback. Work in progress, but done with it for now. I was reading the introduction to my Poe collection and the editor was discussing how Poe deliberately used sounds as well as actual words and images to create the mood and even send the message of his poems. Must have rubbed off a little.
DeleteThis reads like a prayer. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteYour gave us concrete, with lyricism and grace. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteethereal magic (K)
ReplyDeleteWowzers bowzers, HW - I adore this. It's magical.
ReplyDelete-David [ben Alexander]
I really thought about Poe with his red death before you blamed him for your inspiration... loved the way you describe all those acts that we blame (or thank) the moon for, but maybe the moon is just a reflection of ourselves...
ReplyDeleteThis poem is a thicket to be cut through. I can reread it, and reread it, and every time, I find something new which pricks me. I will be back for more! Blessed to discover your work.
ReplyDeleteDarius the Mate.
Thanks so much and pleased you liked it. Really enjoyed discovering your yours this morning, also. It harks back to the early days of blogging, when you never knew what gems you might find at any given prompt.
DeleteBewitching, Hedgewitch. Dark and enchanting! This part gave me a shudder:
ReplyDelete"They say she poisons the fallen
who ravage across the wide earth,
or stare in electrical cages
where madness has gone to give birth." - spooky!!
For some reason - and I don't know why - it made think of Renfield in Dracula, dressed in straitjacket, staring out at the full moon, the only nourishment he has in that moment. But the language is so loving as if spoken by some watchful guardian or worshipper. Superbly done :-)
Thanks, Sunra. I think that's the Alice Cooper part Shay mentioned. ;)
Deletewell i think you might be the goddess to keep safe. i love how you pay graditude to the moon in this. it has a rather lonely feel to it, contrasting the connection, its a nice compliment to each expression. and with all due respect, i have to disagree with your critique of the rhyming, the idea that it needs more work, and i like alice cooper, but i don't think he could write anything this elegant.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the generous appraisal, phillip. Its good to be more elegant than Alice Cooper. ;) i feel a lot better about it since my last edit, too. You got to see the final, or at least semifinal version. Really appreciate you coming by, always.
DeleteJoy,
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat to read this intimate communion with the moon! Yes, I did get E. A. Poe vibes, but so much more too, as in a joining of tasks and the conjoining of forms and activities, making the moon more a benevolent light-giver than author of madness.
pax,
dora
the idea of a moon nurse has me thinking of how even the long-lived features of our cosmos are born, and will someday perish - that they have a vulnerable infancy, and receive succor, long before they shine for us to glimpse in our momentary blip in the shift and shudder of (not quite) infinity. And that we do owe a debt to them for those songs. The tenderness of the rosemary's greening - how you personify the narrator's relationship and bring that eternal into the present moment - rings to me, being one who's favorite color is green ~
ReplyDeleteThanks, M, for getting it so well.
Delete