The Moon

I, too, am tired of it. And yet, like an old love,

it comes to us, illuminating the bare walls

of our houses, catching its hems

on our thresholds, carrying its little cup of blossoms.

We are done with it.

Aren’t we done with it?

We have told ourselves

only grace can change us;

we have told ourselves

the craft is not the magic;

we have told ourselves

the myths are in our hands.

And yet, Issa wrote to us, and ever.

Let us walk out through the summer grass

and be there. Let us look up through the deepest leaves

and open. Let us wait, then,

while the ancient things

are woken, because haven’t

we always been lonely,

haven’t we looked up

into the wild skies

and asked, too, to be luminous

and ruined,

and risen like this cold stone in the darkness

and changed in it as radiantly as we can?