I've been stargazing and moon watching with my son as of late. Even though Karla Kuskin invites us to write about a radish, I think these days I prefer the moon. So, your challenge is to write about the moon. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results later this week.
Great timing -- I was reworking this poem over the weekend:
ReplyDeleteSteps Toward a Full-Moon Machine
By Steven Withrow
First, believe in glories,
in satellites and sorceries of sky.
Any meddler in moonstuff
who's punched enough holes
in night will tell you:
Doubt's the thing to lose.
Certitude's essential
in cleaving the celestial.
Nothing grounds a moon deeper
than doomy howls of gloom.
Instead proceed as a boy
might shape a ball of snow,
mittens sugared with sweet cold,
confident it will fly.
Remember, all that is, is glory.
Now look up.
See the high, bright world you made.
Midnight Snack
ReplyDeleteMoon sits
stoneware white
against night’s
black tablecloth
Pile her high
with wishes and ideas,
serve her
satellites,
sprinkle her with stars
and emptiness
Eat the moonglow
Swallow it whole
Follow its
lonely, delicious path
Go
--Laura Purdie Salas
Gosh--I wrote an entire book of moon poems "What Rhymes with Moon."
ReplyDeleteDid I write this before for Miss R?
The Moon and Me: A Tritina
Looking last night at the moon,
I thought how it resembled a stone
Skipped by a child into the sky.
But who would have thrown into the sky
Something so precious as that moon,
Such an enormous gem stone?
I would have rather hung that stone
Around my neck, bedecked like the sky
With ear-stars as well as that hanging moon,
And strolled into sky town,
the boys whistling at the moonstone and me.
©2009/2010 Jane Yolen All rights reserved
tonight's
ReplyDeletedouble feature,
starring Venus and the
handsome Man in the Moon, begins
at dusk
Cool poems! Here's mine:
ReplyDeleteMoon Boy
When the moon called, I went.
Thirty silver days I spent,
combing the moon's white locks,
believing them a lass's,
not an eldritch crone's.
Till I came home. Now
I can only speak
with a long loon's cry.
Everyone who passes
turns aside, leaving me
to watch the empty sky.
--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved
We will have a full moon on Friday...
ReplyDeleteEverynight Everywhere
We share
this pocketwatch moon
hanging from a chain of stars.
We are children of
Africa
Asia
South America
North America
Europe
Australia.
And we share
this pocketwatch moon
invisibly holding hands
across dirt
and ocean
and language.
We look up to read its face.
We look down to see its smile
reflected in our streams and ponds.
We are children
who will never meet
but still
we share
this pocketwatch moon
this brightness
this hope.
© Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Three days of rain
ReplyDeletetonight, Moon, you're back
my, how you have grown!
funny, i was working on a poem about the moon over the weekend, but didn't quite finish it until yesterday. synchronicity?
ReplyDeletebut it's a bit rude, and i'm not sure how your other readers would feel about it, so i'll be posting it this friday on my blog and will take the brickbats and bouquets over there.
Tuesday is the New Monday indeed.
ReplyDeleteLittle Boy Moon
come into the corn
swinging the curve of a cow’s white horn
come blowing come lowing
the sound of forlorn
we went and put a Man on the Moon
one step one hop one sleepy leap
led to the end of the Man in the Moon
Now we wait in the meadow
We wait with the sheep
for the cat and her fiddle, the dish and the spoon
it’s udderly suddenly up to you
to make the cow leap
to make the moon blue
Little Boy Moon
please make it true
The Man in the Moon
ReplyDeleteThe man in the moon
is a woman,
second best to brother sun,
not as big, not as strong,
and yet . . . .
who cares to stare at the sun?
He will only blind you.
But the moon . . . .
she will look back
and smile.
And who would visit the sun,
who burns if you get too near?
But the moon . . . .
The moon beckons,
she invites,
she welcomes you
to her bosom,
offers all she has,
begs you to stay
and invites you back.
The sun shouts.
See me.
I am here in all my glory.
Take me as I am.
But the moon . . . .
The moon doesn’t boast
or brag.
She doesn’t demand.
The moon accommodates.
Her aim is to please.
One day, the sun will burn out
in a rage of bluster and bravado.
And the moon . . . .
The moon will try a new style.
She will change
and adapt.
She will survive
into eternity,
because she is a rock,
because she is a woman.
~~~Barbara J. Turner
Nice, Barbara!
ReplyDeleteFianlly, I get to play. Here's mine:
ReplyDeletehttp://deowriter.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/poetry-stretch-moon-poems/
Loved the Kuskin poem.
Perspective
ReplyDeleteby Liz Korba
Bend down and look between your legs
And see the moon contract.
It’s true. The moon will minimize.
I love this lunar fact.
On clear nights when the moon is full
My neighbors may see me
And whisper, “She’s a lunatic.”
Moonstruck, I must agree.
I hope two things now: that I'm not too late for the party, and that I am not double-posting this due to an unexpected browser glitch!
ReplyDeleteEarly fall evening
A narrow airplane contrail
Punctuates the moon.
Just found the Poetry Stretch, through David Elzey, via VCFA Forum. Great stuff, all these, thanks. Here's a few:
ReplyDeleteThe Dark of the Moon
Poised
between death and conception
the moon rejoices
quietly
that emptying has ended.
Her invisibility
satisfies her.
She rests
from the gaze of her children.
Yet she teaches us:
Empty your heart.
Imagine no weight in your heart.
It will make you happy.
It will make it true.
Invoking the Moon
Reach your radiance into the recesses
where shame clings like an old scent.
Kindle second sight in my frightened eyes.
Let your glow teach my tongue
to speak the truth of my body.
Loosen my tight throat,
bless resonance through my vocal cords.
Lick my hardened heart with your softness.
With your brave blush, expand my lungs.
Hold me in your moonlap, Mother,
Push your roundness into mine.
Bloom clear in my confused belly,
the bright yellow-white of you.
Bathe my body with your silver shimmer.
Beam into my feet so I walk with sure instinct.
Allow me to follow your lunar path,
through safety, oh my Mother, into ecstasy.
Between my legs let me feel you,
tumultuous and female,
the light and the dark of love.