The Moon’s Word

‘Th’unwearied Sun from day to day/ Does his Creator’s pow’r display;/ And publishes, to every land,/ The work of an almighty hand.// Soon as the evening shades prevail,/ The Moon takes up the wond’rous tale;/ And nightly to the listening Earth,/ Repeats the story of her birth…’ Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, An Ode

The Moon’s Word

It is the Moon’s word - hung
silver among whispering stars.

Shining white root,
before dust, stone -

the chattering letters of life -
organic noise of water, blood,

flesh and green;
elegies of death.

Wearing her soul -
which is cold light,

as insect and ice
wear exoskeleton;

her own lonely species
of light - honed so cool,

austerely holy, pure; turned
madly bright with loneliness.


A ragged rock bowl
of numb winter sea

hears her silver word,
even in sleeping skin,

mirror ear-sheen;
real as a dream -

twitches, remembering
vibrant sun languages;

the dazzling blindness,
shattering into wet fire -

poaching corpulent autumn suns,
sinking under, orange, overripe -

gutted gold light punctured
slowly over syrupy waves,

turning warm red
as animal blood.


In Nights’s black printing ink,
Moon’s white word is written;

voicing her negative, faux light,
until even a high, queenly tree -

wearing her jewel in keener’s hair -
her sparkling winter starnet tangles,

kneels to her waist in black soil;
and blue Earth holds her breath -

listening, all suspended, resting,
to the fledgling night-angel cry,

born apprentice in Nature’s pantheon;
a startling white owl, silver-dipped -

winged ornament, perfect accessory
in dark schemes of decorating night;

hearing the murdered animal spirits
crawling among moss, fallen leaves;

brittle consonants of glinting black flints -
river’s mercurial skin, her travelling heart

of music; long humming conundrums
of identity - signature impermanence -

smudging milk-blue air with luminosity;
sickly ghosts of her closed honeysuckle –

white brides who have failed with bees;
nunly they hang, offering up sacrifice -

perfume as the last prayer of the flower,
mimicking a signature smell of Heaven.


Her cold white sound,
bloodless command,

has won the season’s night -
overcome both Sun and Earth,

which no longer breathe;
leaving only monuments.


Moon, always the last white light
left on in the sky for child Earth -

last word on Night’s black page;
printing Sun’s lifeless blueprint,

her heartless pressed flower,
as our body makes bearable

God’s light - so transfigured,
we can look upon ourselves.


It is the Moon’s word
hung in black silence.