What the Moon Said, by Stork Rein

In the Temple of Sad Goodbyes, by Prartho Sereno (USA) contemporary. Click on image for artist site.

 
What the Moon Said

 In the world that you live in
it is said that I rise and fall with time.
This is untrue.
I am here, in my world,
all of the time.
Sometimes my Sister Earth 
shelters me 
from our Mother Sun.
Sometimes I shelter Her,
but I am here
all of the time,
and I have witnessed
unusual events in your world.
They happen when the dark 
begins its overnight passage,
when my Mother, my Sister and I
rest from our collective labours
and grant one wish to each
living thing on Sister Earth,
on one of my full Moon nights.
 
On this particular twilight
a cancer-ridden wife lies next 
to her cancer-ridden husband.
Hospice waits outside the bedroom.
The wife says:
“I want to dance again
in my ruby red shoes
with you.
I want to be pretty again.
I want you to want me again.”
 
The husband says:
“I want to dance again
in my favourite blue suit
with you.
I want to be handsome again.
I want you to want me again.”
 
And so it was granted.
 
The pretty white swan
in her ruby red shoes
and the handsome bear
in his favourite blue suit
found each other
as they had the first time,
waltzing the night away
in a blue moonlit meadow,
lush with moist aromas.
Dancing, swooning,
caressing, 
waiting for the arrival 
of a different sun.
No Earth, no Moon.
only Light.
 
Stork Rein

Stork Rein:  "I had the fortune of being taught by a fabulous high school English teacher who brought The Waste Land to class for reading and analysis. My poetry neurons began firing then and have yet to be stilled. I count among my influences Tony Hoaglund, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ada Limon, and Nick Flynn. My poems have been published in Remington Review, Mono Magazine, and The Citadel. I live in the alpine community of Mount Shasta, CA, where I practice the art of the long marriage with my wife Erika, while assembling a cookbook of recipes for couples."