Coda for night:

The moon spins
Pirouettes in slow motion
I tilt again my head to see it turn
Catch light in the void
Grow bright in fractions
Blink
And I would watch it all cycle swell and un-swell if I could
From this bedroom
Where in heat we struggle to sleep
In fits against these curses:
Our anger at everything
This years-long deep loneliness
This summer blanket
We can’t slough off or
Leave with the linens
On the closet shelf
Like everything else now gone
Like nothing too it became
A feeling I can’t shake or forget
That we are all starting over this way in life as each cycle the moon does too
Growing empty
Growing full
Growing empty
Both ways back and forwards until the final blink arrives and night comes
Until we shut and see nothing
But aren’t we a fully open eye sometimes?
And even partially open
Can’t we see
the whole of life in front unfold
If only we look?
Besides
We all watch one moon’s slow arced movement in the night
But we are each our own moon’s light reflected outward
On and on always
We flow in sync
And when I am empty
You are full
And when you are empty
Don’t we grow full
Toward god’s
Un-blinked eye
Together?

AS A CHILD I DREAMT OF THE END
It was a dark storm cloud rolling inward
We huddled in the night to watch it come
On blankets with our loved ones in the yard
It was like a 4th of July in the park
Summers near my grandmother’s house
Waiting for the fireworks to start
Waiting for the fireworks
And everywhere I looked on down our street
Neighbors filed dazed and somber out from homes to watch
Gazing up like statues at the night
They knew there was nothing they could do to make it stop
They knew there was nothing they could do but say goodbye and sing
They waited for the clouds to break apart
I could see both fear and joy in my mother’s eyes
I could feel the trembling in my father’s hands
They could see both heaven past that darkness
The lives on earth their children would not now realize
I felt only nothingness arriving and felt terrified
I felt only nothingness

Still I could hear the radio playing in my room
Seeped in through the cracked seals of the dream to me
A hum in the background
A soundtrack
Everything the scale of some disaster scene
Everything this weight I felt but could not see
A numbness
Sleep
Falling
Yes
Every time from then I added to my nightly prayer
Huddled in my bed alone afraid to die
“I cannot bear the thought of even paradise alone
So if I go then let my family follow too
But let them have their lives on earth at home as well”
I feel the same way now about you
But this is how I saw the end of days
Lying in my bedroom still at night
In dreams of the end again
Gathered at home
Only a child
Huddled in our front yard where the night sky
Fell down around us and the light
Vanished in the blackness of the clouds
I feel the same way about it all now
Every day more storm clouds coming down
Every day strong waters rising up above the shore and more
Our streets our homes
Every day more trembling felt in the ground beneath our feet
Every night less sleep
Every night alone in dreams
Recede
I know
There will be no ceremony for us at the end
There will be no place to say goodbye or bury friends
No eulogies
No time in which to say them
There will be no movie scene dream to watch approach above
To shake and wake from
We are already awake
We are already watching
Now can you smell the black smoke in the wind rolling inward?
Do you see the full moon spin above you like I do all night
Or only emptiness?
Do you see some paradise hidden quiet in the background of the night
Or only night?
Do you see the light?
Do you see it?