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Posts Tagged ‘moon’

A Great Shining

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 23, 2026| 1 Comment »

 

                  inspired by Maya Stein’s 10-line poem form
 
 
What if, in this moment, every person on earth thinks of someone who makes us feel cherished, known, safe? What if we let ourselves linger in this moment of connection? What might happen inside each body? What might happen in the world as in unison our breaths begin to even and slow? Would the pulsing of our hearts begin to synch, the way heart cells in a petri dish come to keep time with each other? What is earth if not a great experiment in which we are all both observer and observed? How long could it last, this rhythmic communion between jailor and prisoner, oppressor and oppressed, between fighter and fighter, maker and destroyer, parent and child, liar and believer, all of us thinking of love? Foolish, perhaps, to imagine such impossible moments. But more foolish not to imagine such things. Even now, I’m thinking of someone. It feels like the moon is inside me.

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How We Momentarily Become the Moon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 3, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
 
In the dark house
we watch the moon
rise through the window,
watch as its fullness
climbs into the sky.
For everything we see,
so much we miss.
But in this moment,
your hand in mine,
we give the moon
all our attention until
every part of us,
even our wounds, are
shining.

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Walking at Night after the First Big Snow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
I want to live
my life like
a night made
bright by
moonlight
and snow—
there is
nothing I can
hold onto,
nothing I can
even touch, but
there is no
doubt how real
the light is,
no denying how
that faraway
light reflects
to hold me.

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Call and Response

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 11, 2025| 2 Comments »


 for Cindy
 
Are you there? she said
as she came to my door.
I’m here, I said.
Are you there? she said.
I’m here, I said.
Come, she said,
and we walked to the field
where behind the ridge
the glow of the moon
had begun to appear.
We whispered as we waited
for the moon to rise,
whispered of dreams
and legacies, until, at last,
the fullness had rounded
into the sky,
and we said goodnight,
both of us knowing
we’d witnessed a miracle—
not the miracle of moonrise,
though that, too,
but the alchemy of two hearts
choosing to meet
the world together.

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Perception: A Sonnet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 11, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
 
I take a walk with my whirling thoughts
and the near-full moon and the dark,
and for a time, all that seemed large
in me is no less large, but it’s also a dot,
 
a blip when compared to the whole
of the night, as if the entirety of my life
and the life of my country and the life
of the earth could all fit in a fourteen-line poem
 
with two lines left blank. Because nothing I write
seems to touch how vast, how sublime it is—
the snow moon rising above red cliffs—
only space can convey how humbling it is, the night.
 
 
                                                                                              .

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Immensity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 23, 2024| 12 Comments »


 
 
Just past Circus Circus,
I see it down a side street,
the half moon low on the horizon,
nowhere near as bright or big
as the giant clown smiling above me.
I thrill in my certainty the moon
has grown no smaller.
But how real it seems in this moment,
this moment when the moon looks
littler than a soup bowl
for a giant neon clown
on the Las Vegas strip.
It’s enough to make me think
that other things that seem
so large are not. Enough
to make me long to be a student
of perspective. How quickly
the world changes when
we change the way we see it.
How powerful the invitation
to want to see what is true.

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Still Life on My Mother’s Birthday

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 15, 2024| 9 Comments »



In the painting no one did,
we don’t see the Beaver Moon,
but it is there, full and shining
on the other side of the earth.
What we do see, as if from a bird’s
eye view: the hands of three
generations of women hovering 
above a square wood table.
They hold bright puzzle pieces,
and beneath their fingers, a vibrant garden
has begun to emerge.
What we don’t see is the light
and gauzy conversation—the kind
that swoops, swallow-like, through
the field of the moment, the kind
that swerves and lifts, suggesting a space
unconstrained by straight edges.
In the painting  no one did, the garden
is always blooming, the hands never age,
nothing sad ever happens,
the candles on the cake, also not pictured,
are never blown out, the banter
never ends, and like the unseen moon,
the love is there, reflecting, radiant,
shining beyond the frame.

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Contact Shine

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 26, 2023| 7 Comments »

Sometimes we don’t know
what we’re capable of
until we find ourselves
in the light of another;
suddenly we’re radiant,
downright incandescent—
as tonight, the blue snow
gathered the light of the full moon
in its facets and it flashed and sparkled,
though the snow owns no shine of its own.

This is how it is with my heart—
when I am with you,
it becomes a luminous living thing
and I barely recognize it,
resplendent-sprung and bright-winged,
where just moments before
it was dull. Even the memory of you
can make me shine.
As if nothing is lost.
As if we are made of memory.

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Beneath the Big Moon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 1, 2023| 4 Comments »

I walk in the chill,
and the past
walks beside me,
smooths my tears,
holds my hand,
faithful as evening,
gentle as a shadow.
By the time
I re-enter my home,
it has slipped
inside me again.
We walk through
the door
as one.

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After the Moon Knocked

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 16, 2023| 16 Comments »

 
When she opened the door,
she could not have known
how the winds would enter, too,
how soon the sands of loss
would blow across the hearth
until drifts filled every corner,
rising in every room,
rising until she knew
the door would never close again.
All she had wanted
was to let in the light.
She could not have known
how the sands of loss
would bury the shovel,
bury the broom,
bury even her will to believe
she could ever again
lock out the world.
How gently now they hold her,
these silken dunes she once
tried to exclude.
She curls into their drifts like a nest.
So easily now the moon enters
spilling shine across the sand.
No longer needing to knock,
it offers her all the light it has.


This poem was inspired by a work of art by fine art photographer Marisa S. White, “Drift into the Unknown.” BY THE WAY!!! (I wasn’t going to tell you about this yet, but what the heck!) … this image is also the cover art for my new poetry album (!!!) Dark Praise, 14 poems of “endarkenment” with amazing guitarist Steve Law. More on that soon. This image will be paired with another poem for the album, but when Marisa asked me to write a poem specifically for this image, how could I refuse!? It haunts me, this image–in the best way. 

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