Harvest Moon
Peeking in the window,
blanketing our dreams,
It is a welcome harvest moon
whose straight and narrow beams
filter through our window blinds,
bathing us with light,
coming once again
to fulfill its yearly rite—
a calm and soothing presence
that mitigates the night.
The night turned cool and I was about to arouse myself from my hammock to go up to the house when I caught sight of the moon.
Click on photos to enlarge,
Click on the first photo to enlarge all.
I just couldn’t stop taking photos of the moon on this night of a full lunar eclipse. These may not be the best shots, but I was out there for two hours and I’m soooo sleepy. Strangely, this poem I posted earlier this year to one of Mark’s prompts popped up with the photos in my media file when I posted them. Don’t know how its link got recorded as a jpeg nor how it got here, but it seems to want to be posted again, so here it is:
Lucid Moon
With half a life lived in the dark,
an owl’s hoot, an answering bark,
the moon across the water scattered,
ragged clouds, wispy and battered––
I float in night and solitude,
the night determining my mood.
I lie in darkness and I brood,
a nightly lucid interlude.
When sunlight comes in fits and starts,
The day brings out my other parts.
They rise in me from dawn to noon,
dispelling powers of the moon.
Thus balanced between dark and light,
each half consumes its daily bite.
I welcome each within its time
Life varied, balanced and sublime.
Matt’s prompt today was “Lucidity.” The common meaning of “Lucid” is “clearly expressed” or “easy to understand,” but another meaning is “bright or luminous.”
This is for Marilyn–not a poem! Written over three years ago, it predated the “Me too” movement, but fits right in with the climate today of”one step forward, one step back.” Which will it be by the end of this political “reign”? Hopefully, if a woman winds up on the moon it will be literally and not figuratively.
For Ragtag’s “Moon” prompt.
“To the Moon, Alice!”
On “The Honeymooners,” Ralph Kramden (played by Jackie Gleason) had a phrase that those of us of a certain age can’t help but remember. “To the moon, Alice, to the moon!” he would rasp at his wife (played by the inimitable Audrey Meadows) whenever he had no less predictable comeback to her never predictable jibes. Of course, the idea was that this was how far he would knock her. An upraised fist often accompanied his threat.
The audience, of course, would roar. So hilarious this empty threat, for America knew that Ralph would never make good on the threat. Even Alice never flinched–supposedly because she, too, knew those words signaled an empty threat. But underneath those words and the fact that viewers found them to be so hilarious, was the idea that such threatened violence was funny–and, somehow, that such treatment of his wife was a…
View original post 485 more words
Please click on the first photo to enlarge all and really see the difference between these shots of the moon all taken within two minutes of each other.
(Click on first photo to enlarge all) There is a poem after the photos. Someone just suggested I note that here because he didn’t notice it the first time he looked at this post.
Grand Circle
Circle of sunlight, orb of the moon.
Each of their passages over too soon.
What we may find as the day or the night
gives over to nature in its swift flight
is only the present. It isn’t forever.
No matter how talented, selfless or clever
we’ve fashioned ourselves, we’ll all come around
to serve our real purpose, to nurture the ground.
Time chisels away with its constant cruel rasp.
The hold of a lover loses its grasp.
Circles of friends are too quickly diminished.
Everything started soon seems to be finished.
Each rolling stone must encounter a wall.
The dough of the universe rolled in a ball
still lives by the edict that rules us all.
Whatever has risen is certain to fall.
The very stuff of the bodies we live in
are atomic circlings that we’ve been given
to use for awhile before giving them back
to continue their course on whatever the track
is the larger extension of what we’ve been given—
the next destination to which we’ll be driven.
This circle we live from year’s start to December
is simply the circle that we can remember,
most of us hoping we’ll be up to par
for inclusion in nature’s recycling bazaar.
The prompt today was circle.
Revelation in Twilight
This morning I woke early—an hour before light
obscured my vision of the moon, hanging like a kite
in the night-stained sky, there through my window bars.
suspended high up in a sky devoid of clouds or stars.
Just a minute later, it moved along with me
to float the pool’s surface that only I could see.
Too soon the sun would come, its golden light to douse.
But for now, it followed me as I walked through my house.
Friendly moon to loiter in my company.
It seemed this early morning that both of us were free
to spend a few rare moments quietly alone.
Both of us free-floating in the twilight zone.
(Please click on first photo to enlarge all.)
The prompt today was revelation. All photos by jdb.
Night Chorus
Village dogs out in the dark—
first they howl, and then they bark.
A filling moon spills from a cloud.
That’s when the dogs become so loud.
Each of my dogs is in his bed,
though they’d rather be outside instead.
My dogs and I silent and still
as outside voices speak their will.
The little burro brays consent.
Wind in the palms nodding assent.
I have my qualms about leaving Morrie and Diego out all night to converse with the neighbors. I spoil all their fun!!!
Two Poems from a Night with No Moon
I wrote these poems two years ago, but I had forgotten them, so perhaps even if you read them then, you have forgotten them, too.
This Night is Broken
With all of its sounds
spilled out,
someone else’s sounds
echo around it.
The space inside of it
is broken, too.
Only the constant rain
seeks to fill it.
Falling Practice
Twice on the stairs last week
and once in the kitchen—
lately, these falls
have been coming in threes.
Tonight in the moonless dark, I tripped
over the low metal bench beside the hot tub.
Then a loud bang sent me searching
to find the heavy husk fallen from the palm tree.
I do not venture out alone again,
but sit on the patio
in the light of my laptop,
hoping to escape the third fall.
Your face on the screen turns green
from the reflection of the string
of Chinese lanterns
as we succumb to hard truths.
I fell in love with you so quickly,
but even all these falls
have not taught me how
to fall out of love with you.
The Prompt today was “Moon“
