When we use our attention to touch and open the deeper truth in a person, we not only catalyze the experience of love, we become love. The source of love is revealed to be within us; we no longer have to go looking for it somewhere outside.
—Nicole Daedone, “Love Becomes Her,” Tricycle Magazine
It is not too late for love.
Tonight the moon rose,
as it always does, but it
was not the same. It rose
as if close enough to touch,
right there, but I could not touch it.
I gave it my whole attention, then,
listened only to the sound
of it turning while we, too,
were turning, though the sage,
the rocks, the dry arroyo
did not attest to our turning.
The desert had other sounds, too,
but I had, for that moment,
ears only for the moon,
and felt, how strange, my own rising,
felt it so fully I nearly cheered
as the whole vacant shine of it
crested the mesa, cheered though
it was further away then,
or so it seemed, further away, or so,
I see, it only seemed.
That sequence that follows “…bit I had, for that moment, ears only for the moon…” — so lovely from there until the end. Not that what comes before it isn’t good, but there are gems and then there are jewels. That’s the latter.
Off to the wild for a bit, will catch up as I can:)
re: the opening quote, I think love is (other than a many-splintered thing) something we enter into—it’s far too expansive for anyone of us to its “source.”
After reading this “Today’s Poem du Jour,” the word, spare, came into my mind—akin to, sparse (not “extra”, nor “unneeded”) perhaps my thinking mind was fooled by its taking place in the mesa-land desert. rather, there’s quite a fecundity afoot, hereabouts. and I love, “the whole vacant shine”—such a playing with opposites.
It was wonderful being there at the same time and then seeing it again through the poet’s eye and mind. Good work.
It WAS wonderful, Joe and Linda, to be there with you to share the moon rise. What a special night that was. Thanks for everything you did to help put it on.