Between the Moon & Me

Sometimes the hour of sadness

Hovers like a cloud 

So fragile and so tender 

Too real to talk about

A finger to my lips

A silent reverie

Just between the moon and me

O how the words unspoken 

Linger on my tongue

Trying to convince me

That what is done is done

But I know what I wish for 

When I’m counting sheep

Just between the moon and me

It’s a minor bird

In a minor tree

The song I know by heart

The key of you and me

And now the past plays tricks

On my memory

Tries to make sense

Out of what will never be

But I am just the prose

She’s the poetry

That’s why she will always be

Just between the moon and me

—Tom Prasada-Rao

[Lyrics written by a talented high school friend].

Time

Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: 

When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, 

I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. 

I can slow the torrent by being all here.

—Ann Voskamp (One Thousand Gifts)

[Baasch Family, E. Wallingford, VT, 1995] 

The Stillness of the World Before Bach

 

There must have been a world before
the Trio Sonata in D, a world before the A minor Partita,
but what kind of a world?
A Europe of vast empty spaces, unresounding,
everywhere unawakened instruments
where the Musical Offering, the Well-Tempered Clavier
never passed across the keys.
Isolated churches
where the soprano line of the Passion
never in helpless love twined round
the gentler movements of the flute,
broad soft landscapes
where nothing breaks the stillness
but old woodcutters' axes,
the healthy barking of strong dogs in winter
and, like a bell, skates biting into fresh ice;
the swallows whirring through summer air,
the shell resounding at the child's ear
and nowhere Bach nowhere Bach
the world in a skater's stillness before Bach.

--Lars Gustafsson
translated by Philip Martin

[Douglas performing Bach's Suite VI in D Major for Unaccompanied Cello]

Moon and Water

 

I wake and spend
the last hours
of darkness
with no one but the moon.
She listens
to my complaints

like the good

companion she is
and comforts me surely
with her light.
But she, like everyone,

has her own life.
So finally I understand
that she has turned away,
is no longer listening.

She wants me
to refold myself
into my own life.
And, bending close,

as we all dream of doing,
she rows with her white arms
through the dark water
which she adores.

    --Mary Oliver

[Lunar eclipse 11-8-22]

In The Season of Tissues

 

My mother believed,
            Well, she believed a lot of things
Like pocketbooks and shoes should match,
Lettuce must be torn and not cut,
And Richard Nixon was a crook.
But
She also believed that everything
From colds to flu
To upset stomachs
To a broken heart,
Could be mended
If not outright cured
With soda crackers and warm ginger-ale.
Toss in a couple of red and white cans
Of Cambell's chicken noodle soup
And there you'd have it,
An entire professional pharmacopeia
In a brown paper bag.

But mostly,
It was the love I remember,
The cool hand on my forehead,
The smell of Vapo-rub on my chest,
The way she'd check-in regularly,
Or let me wrap up in a blanket on the couch,
And watch her favorite soap opera,
As she ironed shirts and pillow cases.

That is why I always have soda crackers
And cans of soup in my pantry,
You never know when the most simple gesture
Will be just what the doctor ordered,
When a bit of flour and water
And a little something sweet,
Might help bring down a fever
Or lighten a burden.

I think this is why my daughter,
(who is now a grown woman living in a busy urban center)

Will still call me when she's "meepy"

Which is the word we use to describe

Feeling a little flu-ish and vulnerable,

And I'll call her "honey" and "poor baby"

And ask if her husband can stop on his way home

For soda crackers and ginger ale,

Maybe some soft tissues

The ones with aloe in them.

And she always says "Thanks Mom"

And I always think "Thanks Mom"

And the whole world feels more tender

More caring,

More worthy of saving,

Because love continues to hold steady

In large and small ways

Resonating for generations

Or lightening our days

Right here and right now,

In the season of tissues.

--Carrie Newcomer

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

--William Shakespeare

Everybody in the Same House

 

It was after someone's graduation

and even though some did

not want their picture taken,

I engineered the photo,

set up the tripod,

cajoled, insisted, got it:

faces in a jagged line,

the dog a blur,

and some of my love shining

(like now?) old-fashioned in my face.

That night everybody sleeping

under the same roof

in various cots and cubbyholes,

makeshift,

camping out.

This could be the occasion

we'll calculate from:

Remember that time

when we were all together?

That hour perhaps adjacent

to what the sacred might be:

a cave we have found, a temporary

stay, and the children

in their niches, full of sleep,

full of daring, full of risk,

turning over to other poses,

one by one, in safety.

--Majorie Saiser

[Photo of the Gardner-Baasch-Willis Family]