mare imbrium, ii

Grandmother Moon hide me in the snowy
blanket of your light, but let me see the
secret life of the woman who walks with golden
candles in this the city
of my discontent. Let me know her stories
& her songs: the girl triumphant in
her monologue, the young woman's careful
choice, the maiden taking account of her
truth, not trusting the slick solutions
of the paranormer players like this
would-be Magus.

Good for you.

Mitred corners enclose me, in this frame,
I look and suddenly, she is there, Eleanor
of Aquitane, that tapestry at the Cloisters,
fair Annalise under the boughs of the holy oak,
Kimberly, smiling that knowing sacred grin
across her desk.

"Later you."

My heart is drumming her lyric self
each cycle greater than the last
the notes describe the melody of this life
Grandmother Moon help me be
worthy of Her song.

This piece was written before Kimberly and myself started living together in late 1996. I was deep in the knowledge of the Lady by then. Graves' The White Goddess rested on my bed table. It had suddenly come to me that Kimb and I knew the same sorts of things about the nature of being, the universe itself. We both had adopted the prism of the Lady in how to approach and live our lives. And, I was totally falling in love with her. That pretty blonde woman in the editor's office, who smiled at me when I walked by. Every day I still strive to be worthy of Her song, the Lady's and Kimb's. This is still the most remarkable event of my life: Kimb's love.

Surprise: On What is Going On Here

Let's make this clear now. I am what Robert Graves would characterize as a poet of the Theme. All my good poems tend to center around the romantic relationships of this turn on the wheel. This is how it is. These poems attempt to describe and catalogue my real relationship to the phenomenol world. I struggle every single day to ascribe some sense of truth to these words, these captured metaphors. It is, I think, remarkably difficult to be truly honest in language and yet live in humility and love. I think that is why most true aesthetes live as hermits and monks. When you farm the territory of the relationship, particularly with sex involved, the ability to see through the forest becomes very tenuous at best.

Yet I believe I am very good at this. Flawed, but still, a greater resource than I would have thought myself as late as forty. Life is an interesting and fluid spell-making journey. I have embarked on it, as have we all, the spirit in mind, but the flesh is the great engine that drives us. I do not see that there is any actual division between these things. This is the hidden wisdom of the mystery religions. This is the act that makes poetry real.

Suddenly, that which was thought mystical becomes the physical act of love. Surprise!