SwansSoilMe/SwansSaveMe
Chymist
“Light Fades with Light”
You never thought your goodbye to the moon would come
on a morning.
You'd come to despise the daylight,
recluding from disorienting sun-scatter till dusk, then
opening the door and stepping intrepid, maybe stumbly.
The sun never wanted beholding, that was clear,
but the moon never but held you...steadied you.
So when it finally happened they
kept you in, how they did,
up all night, though not alive with it –
when on any other, you'd
have had the chance to spy it out, that twilight blossom,
from your lawn or around any corner on a walk,
bearing your steps by its glow.
To "commoon," you once inspired,
and felt the thought drift
downward as, standing, your
cigarette sent its curls up and
along the crescent of the yellow-waxing orb.
"God's fingernail": you as a child...
Yet God never hovered long.
Now old man moon, but
who looking at whom?
And when it went “new”
it wasn't even there.
But you would carry it cranial, enlightened,
until it began to sneak out again,
every endarkened evening.
So then, when the ambulance arrived
you glanced from stretcher to sky and
there it was, a faded blue, its
shape and scope no match for
even an unseen sun – risen too early –
and whispering goodbye to you.
Or maybe just to the tired night.
So you closed your eyes to its tired light.
Noel Pratt
January 2006
You never thought your goodbye to the moon would come
on a morning.
You'd come to despise the daylight,
recluding from disorienting sun-scatter till dusk, then
opening the door and stepping intrepid, maybe stumbly.
The sun never wanted beholding, that was clear,
but the moon never but held you...steadied you.
So when it finally happened they
kept you in, how they did,
up all night, though not alive with it –
when on any other, you'd
have had the chance to spy it out, that twilight blossom,
from your lawn or around any corner on a walk,
bearing your steps by its glow.
To "commoon," you once inspired,
and felt the thought drift
downward as, standing, your
cigarette sent its curls up and
along the crescent of the yellow-waxing orb.
"God's fingernail": you as a child...
Yet God never hovered long.
Now old man moon, but
who looking at whom?
And when it went “new”
it wasn't even there.
But you would carry it cranial, enlightened,
until it began to sneak out again,
every endarkened evening.
So then, when the ambulance arrived
you glanced from stretcher to sky and
there it was, a faded blue, its
shape and scope no match for
even an unseen sun – risen too early –
and whispering goodbye to you.
Or maybe just to the tired night.
So you closed your eyes to its tired light.
Noel Pratt
January 2006
