As the Moon Smiles, she resembles you:
You give off the same impression of
Something Beautiful, but Annihilating—²
The Moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye,
And when she weeps—weeps every little Flower.³
At the rising of the moon the earth
Changes from flesh to Bone.⁴
The thief left it behind:
The Moon at the window.⁵
The Moon is more beautiful later: when
We’ve gone to bed with our Poem about the
Moon; the real moon is too real for our poem:
The moon in our Poem is best for Poetry.⁶
I see the Moon, and the moon sees me—
God bless the Moon, and God bless me!⁷
We fasten the Moon in the sky with a
Safety pin—to give us perpetual Light—⁸
We carry chunks of the Moon to light tunnels
Through the darkness between Constellations.⁹
We defy our ages, and Gaze long at
The Last Sky before Moonset …¹⁰
¹ Carl Sandburg, She Held Herself a Deep Pool for Him
² Sylvia Plath, The Rival
³ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
⁴ Linda Pastan, Insomnia
⁵ Ryokan tr. John Stevens, The Thief Left it Behind
⁶ Unknown, A Song for the Moon
⁷ Nursery Rhyme
⁸ Anne Sexton, Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
⁹ Robert Bly, A Journey with Women
¹⁰ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Akash & Forché, Addresses for the Soul