Grandmother Moon

It is hard to begin listening to the sky and land without overlapping with perceptions of others who earlier listened to the land and the sky. Imagine a group of young people who have absented themselves for two nights from the modern world to be in a field in early summer near the coast under a buttermilk sky lit by the moon. They have left all devices back in the city. Knowing they are novices, they are led by an elder from an ancient culture. They become quiet. They are waiting. The next day one of them tries to cram it into language.

I heard a voice as definite and smooth as ivory:

Now, listen well, you who can: It's June. I'm Grandmother Moon.

Do they take me for something a cow jumps over -- a cartoon?

Do they think I'm made of cheese (from that acrobatic cow)?

Do they see, in Grandmother's face, a man -- "the man in the moon"?

I'm asking you politely: how do they see me?

It's true that I seem to do little more than to sway,

daily, the waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic

and all those other liquid bodies, shifting everything

that's not solid or fixed in habits, or columns and rows.

As for reflected glory, I sing praises to the sun

the way a bather in hot springs might thank earth's molten core

without wishing at all to slip directly into it.

I praise the sun. I reflect its raging furnace brilliance

the way life's passions are reflected in the shield of art.

I'm Grandmother Moon. It's June. It's time to tell how I rose

on the first night of your gathering on that gentle ridge

just before I shone across the sea, ten hours,

and over China's coast, the Pamir range, then Lake Baikal.

But first I smiled on your collective, there under canvas....

I don't "rise," you know: really I'm just here, watching earth turn,

tracking the seamless scroll of human possibility.

When you came under my gaze, you were partially eclipsed

by an evergreen stand, so I saw you first through needles,

but I knew right away you were friends of the Grandmother,

for you stopped talking. Please understand: I love honest words.

I share my secrets as often as I shift the waters.

I whisper to poets. But there's a praise beyond language:

You fell silent; you let me in to the sky of your hearts.

Like you, I was happy to watch that other sky rumple

like crinoline made of gauze, get soft as old crushed velvet,

go curdly like cool buttermilk. And all I had to do

(as I know you noticed) was to go on softly shining.

Grandmother is patient. She has watched seas form, mountains rise

and snows gather on their peaks, reflecting her wisdom-light.

Grandmother can wait. Any time will do. How about now?

It's June. I'm Grandmother Moon. Earth is my rune stone. Read it.