Immortal Remains

Immortal Remains
I hope you did not miss the beautiful moon.
Let heaven’s clouds stand in for your tears.
The moon is the same to all times and all people,
only our thoughts are different. Think this:
The unchanging moon symbolizes change.
Coal black and bone white, the moon can mean
climate stability, fertile ocean tides,
one small step to magnificent desolation,
night and the rime of silver light at night,
lunacy, when the mind is drawn astray,
and love and joining what is far apart.
Let heaven’s clouds stand in for your tears,
brush your eyes and look back at the shining
monument of stone, the cat’s-eye moon.
3 July 2004
Originally written in a very short period, perhaps fifteen minutes, after I saw a moon the color of a cat’s eye. That origin somehow made it hard for me to revise the weaker lines—everything felt fixed from the start—but I finally made minor improvements in 2012. Written for S.P.