from 2004

                                     THE MOON

OK, so I'm out on the deck smoking a cigarette
and drinking red wine.
What I'm really doing is watching the moon
through the trees in this, my new favorite time
of the year...when all is bare, stark, dying and thin...
knowing what comes next is new life.

Most people I know would chide me for smoking
and more than a few would deride me for
the red wine--but I no longer care.

What I care about is the moon, the moon, the moon.

I know why countless ancient folks worshiped the moon.
Why wouldnt one worship what brings dim light
to the darkness and moves the seas?

Like the seas, the moon moves me.
Outward to the great chill of the ionosphere and beyond...
though I will never possess the moon, she draws me near.
Though I will never own her, I worship her.

Then the waxing ceases and the waining begins.
The moon pushes me back deep inside of me,
down among the dim passages I seldom walk,
to a door to a room I don't remember knowing,
and I open the door...and there I find--the moon.

So I stand and stare, wanting to know more,
longing to possess the wondrous brightness of it all.
Waiting on my deck, smoking and drinking, watching only this:
through the bare trees, the moon, the moon, the moon....

jgb--11/26/04