THE SUBSERVIENT MOON

THE SUBSERVIENT MOON

Each day
The rising sun
chases the moon away
To hide its limpid light
From the brightness of day.
Cowed in its lair
Within the darkness
Of its sylvan hideaway,
Preferring to lie
With the leaves
And squirrels
And, as Clytie,
Watch the skies,
Following Helios’s chariot,
Gazing as he
Arcs the heavens,
Jealous of his power,
Fearful of his revenge
Were she ever to show her face
In his presence.
Ever allowing her nemesis
To hold sway
Over the new day,
Commanding the attention of the world
And continuing his journey;
The dominant presence
In the cerulean sky.

When is the moon not a moon? 
… When it’s the sun in a circular mirror. 

The three photographs are of a reflection in a window of daylight, itself reflected in a circular mirror and back onto the glass of the window.
All photographs by me – March 2017 … Roland (WHB) 

In Love

When did the starlight happier seem than now?
The evening’s quiet, when so full of peace?
How does heaven seem so near to me
Now, when I have wished away my heart?

Why has the night so sober been?
Why has my mind been reason’s moon?
That this poor sun has felt so long a night
The bark of last year’s growth has now unveiled
A green and stripling age of mind;
Eloping with this redder, browner blaze
Of hopeful, living love.

The two paintings above are by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828  – 1882).   His model, who he considered his muse, and who later became his wife, was Elizabeth Siddal (1829 – 1862). 

On Moon-gazing

At such a sight
As the moon at night
So high, so bright
My thoughts take flight
The sheer delight
Of its vibrant white
Its pungent bite
Some day might
Emit its light
To end my plight
Leaving me quite
Without foresight
Indeed contrite

All this I write
So slight
And yet, so recondite

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Nature’s Cavalcade

Samuel Palmer -The valley Thick With Corn

When Hopkins gloried in dappled things
He must have thought of angels’ wings
Of gossamer and cuckoo spit
Of candles flicker-lit

As Palmer did
In silent chapels
In Kentish fields

 

Of darkening woods
where sunlight hides
In sheepland pastures

On downy hills

In buttercup meadows
Where linnet trills

The silent raptures
Of sunset light
On autumn trees
Where swoops the kite

And evening captures
The thickening shadows

The cooling breeze
Midst fields of golden rippling corn
That now adorn the rustic scene

Such glory in apple blossom seen

As they, with Blake,
Held in their hand
Those grains of sand
To wonder more
How Nature’s glory
Explains itself
In storm
And stillness
In calm and frenzy
Light and shade
In setting sun
And mounting moon

The evening’s glaze
In bounteous harvest
Nature’s cavalcade

Once Upon an Autumn

Photo by Dids on Pexels.com

 

In the land that love forgot
lit by the light of an autumn moon
Memory stirred and held a thought
of those once upon a time days
When roses
rich with red
scented days with hope
Wind-strewn days with fallen apple
air fresh with suckled honey
When once You and I loved
smitten
immersed in this infinity
enamoured
Longing
in those autumn days
Regaining in their wistful hours
what summer once had brought us 
All now lost in time’s story
But always and forever 
written on memory’s scroll. 

 

The Moon And Sixpence

 

Photo by Just Another Photography Dude on Pexels.com

 

The Moon & Sixpence

 

At such a sight
As the moon at night
So high, so bright
My thoughts take flight
The sheer delight
Of its vibrant white
Its pungent bite
Some day might
Emit its light
End my plight
Leaving me quite
Without foresight
Yet still contrite

All this I write
So slight
And yet
So recondite

My life’s Sixpence 
I’ve almost spent
It’s true
I’m getting old
And to my cost
I’ve loved and lost
My heady tale
Is nearly told

For all my time
The pain, the wine
I’ve trod the edge
So they allege
But despite the sorrow  
The joy and pain
Nothing in vain

The theme has been
I’ve lived my dream

NOTE:  From ‘Wikipedia’, describing the derivation of the title for Somerset Maugham’s novel, ‘The Moon and Sixpence’, which is loosely based on the life of French artist, Paul Gauguin.

According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage in which the novel’s protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as “so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.”  According to a 1956 letter from Maugham, “If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don’t look up, and so miss the moon.” Maugham’s title echoes the description of Gauguin by his contemporary biographer, Meier-Graefe (1908): “He [Gauguin] may be charged with having always wanted something else.”

Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Two Little Good Girls’

[  # 86 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Known primarily as a novelist, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was an American writer. He published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’, published in(1969.

I do like this short poem of his which I came across only recently.  Apparently it was never given a title by Vonnegut and was discovered in a letter of 1961 sent by him to a friend.  It has a delightfully simple and artless warmth which engenders such good feeling and optimism.

 

Two little good girls
Watchful and wise —
Clever little hands
And big kind eyes —
Look for signs that the world is good,
Comport themselves as good folk should.
They wonder at a father
Who is sad and funny strong,
And they wonder at a mother
Like a childhood song.
And what, and what
Do the two think of?
Of the sun
And the moon
And the earth
And love.

 

 

 

Till The World Ends

Detail of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting, modelled by his wife, Elizabeth Siddal

PROMISE TO A LOST LOVE

As the pull of the moon
And the push of the wind
Cause the waves to break on the shore,

So the lure of your face
And the pulse of your heart
Will ever my lifeblood restore.

Till the tides end their flow
And the breeze ceases motion
I vow it’s just you I’ll adore

For when the end comes
And I’m covered in earth
I’ll be with you for time evermore.

 

When I Am Gone

‘Graveyard Moon’ … WHB -Pen  Wash 2017

WHEN I AM GONE

 

When I am gone
And you are left.
Be not afraid,
Be not bereft.

When you are old
And I am gone,
You’ll love the moon
That shines upon

My midnight grave,
Our place of tryst;
For though I’m gone
I still exist

In memory still;
The moon that shone
Upon our birth
Still shines for us

… when I am gone.

 

A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE

 

 

A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE

 

The back of midnight’s moon

Is gifted me

Bringing a still

And total beauty

In its light across the calm waters

The path to it calls me

And I know

With an unfamiliar certainty

My faith can bear me to it

To that paradise in the sky

Heaven’s haven

Realised in this

So delicate a moment

My life transmuted

Into one of peace and serenity

The death of life

Discovers

Meaningful rebirth

But even as I watch

The golden glow diminishes

   The pull of the pellucid path

Slowly fades behind the clouds

The chance is gone

For now

But I feel an assurance

That another day

It will be offered me again

And

with open arms

I will grasp it

Photographs:  WHB   ©

Collaborative poem – written by WHB, based on a prose description by Canadian artist, Alma Kerr, of an experience when looking, at evening time, across the waters of the Pacific, off the western coast of British Columbia . . .