Watermark

Cold Moon

Each month I show you the same face,
and you call me a different name.

Now you call me Cold Moon,
but I am always cold.

You call me Long Night Moon,
but my nights are always long,

bright on one side, dark the other.
I am the same, always, and you

make of me what you desire. Magical,
monstrous, indifferent, muse.

I pull at your blood, and you
deny me. We yearn for one

another, stone of my stone, fire
of my fire, night of my night.
  

Dec. 12, 11:37 a.m. EST — Full Cold Moon; among some tribes, the Full Long Nights Moon. In this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and the nights are at their longest and darkest. Also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long and the moon is above the horizon a long time. The midwinter full moon takes a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite to the low Sun. The moon will also be at perigee later this day, at 5:00 p.m. EST, at a distance of 221,560 mi. (356,566 km.) from Earth. Very high ocean tides can be expected from the coincidence of perigee with full moon.
    

  Totally Optional Prompt: Request for Persona Poems

Frost Moon

Death walks with me
but there is no scythe.
For some it's sudden, done.
For others, no swift
taking, but a slow
evaporation, a stiffening,
a brittleness, a steady
sloughing of the self.

This rain is heavy, loud.
Fallen leaves turn black
and slimy, sink into mud,
slide on pavement. The moon
is invisible, but cold. This
is not a freshening rain.
This is autumn's rain.
This is winter's rain.

Nov. 13, 1:17 a.m. EST — Full Beaver Moon. Time to set beaver traps before the swamps freeze to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Beaver Full Moon come from the fact that the beavers are now active in their preparation for winter. Also called the Frosty Moon.

Hunters' Moon

hunters' moon
the dog pulls
at the leash

Oct. 14, 4:02 p.m. EDT — Full Hunters' Moon. With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it is time to hunt. Since the fields have been reaped, hunters can ride over the stubble, and can more easily see the fox, along with other animals, which have come out to glean and can be caught for a thanksgiving banquet after the harvest.

Harvest Moon

I wake to a bright night, moon resting
on the swell of the mountain.

Geese pass noisily overhead, barking
like a herd of schnauzers.

A storm spins past Galveston
another spins out of Washington

and yet another from Wall Street,
each leaving loss and debris

in its wake. I listen to love songs
on the radio and try to remember how

that felt. It's time for the long nightgown,
the flannel sheets. Time to close

the windows against autumn. The stars
of my generation are dying off.

Somewhere, someone is bringing in
the crops. Long ago, I helped with that,

prepared meals for the field hands,
bacon sizzling, the women talking,

shelling peas, canning peaches. Now,
I lift my food from the shelves. It has

nothing to do with me.

   

   

UPDATE 16 September 02008: This poem has been selected for inclusion on Poet's Corner at fieralingue. Thanks, Anny!

Red Moon

  

You took my cat
from me. He flew
from his body.

I could not hold him.
I think it was your color
that called him. Same

to same. Now when
I see you, I hear him
purr. I could not hold him.

Aug. 16, 5:16 p.m. EDT — Full Sturgeon Moon, when this large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water like Lake Champlain is most readily caught. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because the moon rises looking reddish through sultry haze, or the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon. There will be a Partial Lunar Eclipse that will be visible from Europe, Africa and the western two-thirds of Asia with this full moon. At its maximum 81 percent of the moon's diameter will become immersed in the Earth's dark umbral shadow.

[The photo is a mashup: Full Moon from Rhys Jones Photography and Spike]

Thunder Moon | Revision

 

   

It woke me at midnight. It touches
everything, the photographs
on the far wall, the chair
that rocked me

on my grandmother's lap, this bed
in its summer whites. It's quiet,
stealthy. If I sit still
long enough,

I can see it move. But the light
in this room does not move.
This light is a thin dry mist,
it silvers

the dog's paws, twitching
with dreams. The moon
dreams, too. It dreams
of rain.

The moon is bruised with time.
It conjures bolts of fire, it sets
the mountains aflame.
Lightning, this moon.

Yes. Lightning.

   

6/20: Again, the original is below the cut, for those interested in the process.

June Moon

Rose Moon, open.
Strawberry Moon, fill
our mouths with sweetness.

It is the month of marriage,
weddings under arches,
long dresses and dress coats.

Women marry men, men
marry men, women marry
women, inconstant humans

promising constancy, forgetting
how you fade, how you pass
from fullness to absence; from

promise to amnesia. Bless
these brides, these grooms.
Scatter your light upon them.

  

Flower Moon

May Moon, Milk moon, you hide
in the rain. Meadows are wild
with lupine, columbine and phlox.
Tulips and violets open their hearts.

It is time to plant the corn. Young
squirrels practice mating in the garden,
all four in a tumble of spring, taking
turns being boy, being girl. Flower Moon,

this year you bring sorrow, and pain. Old
friends fade; old knees complain of the rain.
Corn Planting Moon, sixty times I have slept
beneath you. Milk Moon, smile on me.

Full Flower Moon. Flowers are abundant everywhere. It was also known as the Full Corn Planting Moon or the Milk Moon. Since the moon arrives at apogee less than 12 hours later, this will also be the smallest full moon of 2008. In terms of apparent size, it will appear 12.3 percent smaller than the full moon of Dec. 12.   

Pink Moon

Full Moon over Fitzroy
Originally uploaded by johncarney

Pink Moon, Egg Moon,
you bring snow
and crow complaining
from the spruce tree.
You bury the crocus.
You bend the trees down.
Grass Moon, Fish Moon,
harbinger of spring,
why are you so cold?

Apr. 20, 6:25 a.m. EDT — Full Pink Moon. The grass pink or wild ground phlox is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names were the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and — among coastal tribes — the Full Fish Moon, when the shad came upstream to spawn.

Snapshot Poem, Spring Equinox

Worm Moon, Crow Moon

Crow Moon, tonight you fly
at the balance of the year,
half light, half dark, tipping
your wing toward spring.

Crow Moon, caw away
this winter, gnaw the last
crusts of snow from the
frozen garden. Shine

the earthworms up to
the surface. Worm Moon,
Crow Moon, Full Sap Moon,
wake us up once more.

Mar. 21, 2:40 p.m. EDT — Full Worm Moon. In this month the ground softens and the earthworm casts reappear, inviting the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signals the end of winter, or the Full Crust Moon because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. This is also the Paschal Full Moon; the first full moon of the spring season. The first Sunday following the Paschal Moon is Easter Sunday, which indeed will be observed two days later on Sunday, March 23. This will, in fact, be the earliest Easter since 1913.

       

Snapshot Poem

Photo by uncle mike in knoxville

Lunar Eclipse

Snow Moon, Hunger Moon,
for too long, the larders
have been empty.

The dead come to us
in dreams. They speak
but we cannot hear them.

The woods are quiet.
Only the hiss of spiders
in the snow.

The fire is banked.
The children sleep.
Cold sighs at the door.

Snow Moon,
Hunger Moon,
tonight the sky

will eat you.

Snapshot Poem 23 January 02008

Wolf
Originally uploaded by IJsendoorn
   
 

     Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon, is that you
howling through the courtyard,
banging at our windows,
stripping shingles from the roof,
demanding to be let in? You,

hungry, in your winter coat,
fur tipped with frost and snow?
I hear you prowling, your breath
puffs coldness under the door.
Wolf Moon, I cannot see you,

but I know you're there.

   
 

Jan. 22, 8:35 a.m. EST — Full Wolf Moon. Amid the zero cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. It was also known as the Old Moon or the moon after Yule. In some tribes this was the Full Snow Moon; most applied that name to the next moon.

IJsendoorn has quite wonderful photos on flickr. Here is his Animal Photoset.

Snapshot Poem 16 January 2008

 

How does one come to believe in the moon?
What it actually is, I mean; not what it appears
to be. It is not a lantern, held up in the sky
by some invisible god. It is not an illuminated,
disembodied head, floating in the ether.

And Saturn, with its glowing, colored rings.
You pull back from the lens, startled, dis-
believing. You look around you at what is real,
what can be touched, what can be believed in.
And fog, what is that? Only water, they tell me,

mere vapor. Thick, cushioned, its own universe.
And there you are, within it. Alone. Sound moves
toward, away from you. The very air has become
visible, it touches your face, it wraps itself around
your solid body. In this blind universe, what are you?

This week's prompt: The Magician

Snapshot Poem

 

the moon is dark
the ground is ice
i shall let my hair grow
out in a tangle
i shall dance in my rags
on the high street
the moon is dark
the ice is black
on the boulevards
i shall cut the fingers
from my tattered gloves
i shall pull at my hair
its knots and its tangles
the moon is dark, the stars hide
i will let my hair grow out in tangles
i will cut the fingers from my gloves
i shall dance in the snow on the boulevards

This week's prompt is Resolutions.