Moony Memory - A poem in several voices

Moony Memory - A poem in several voices

Can it be

there is a place          

to be touched 

stirred as if with a spoon

that creates an eddy    that swirls open    the place where sorrow

and love interchange parts     yet always fit

a place

one must pass through to arrive

This stanza was to be for you

     a sunny affirmation to shine through foggy doubt

but last night she climbed into my dreams to play

     hide and seek with moony memory

     tumble with my rhyme and meter

     then chose to stay in quilts and pillows

     leave me here to blush and fumble empty headed

but she's still there just waiting to be led to daylight

     to meet you and hand you my words

We wander about,

    not aimlessly

    in our metaphoric landscapes

Rivers made of eddies of thought 

    dragging boulders of memory

    through gravel beds of experience

    and dreams of doubt

Weaving the warp and weft

    with the rhyme and meter

    of love and sorrow

             into the comfort

    of our anticipated arrival

She places words into my hand

I fear clasping too hard, but if the boulders of memory

tickle my palms, I may loosen letters letting them fall

between crevices or into wells where women

chant songs of enticement promising  

the good luck of a copper penny wish

with this closed palm of words, I choose a path

to pass into the inescapable landscapes of love and sorrow

in unforeseen measure              and wild  wild metaphors 

We began this journey, 

wanting to re-wild our words

we masticated our metaphors, 

abstracted our allegories

building songlines 

criss-crossing our inner landscapes

wayfinding through the known and  unknown

landmarks and wear marks au natural

and we continue wondering
     riverbeds of implication
sleepy stanzas blinking in the light
     straining to see the relation
          of logic to passion
          of seconds to centuries

what can it mean
     that my upraised hand blocks out
           a thousand million stars
          each with their own world of poets

Can it be there are no secret truths or slippery paths

all we need do is slide out of our protective covers

unloose the bag we’ve carried since

those first steps, erase those “no no’s”

forget if our story is a life or our life is a story

be the next plain gray rock or weird shaped

formation

Do we sneak up on our truths

    or do we stand casually looking away

    while they sneak up on us?

Or is it more about forgetting

    unlearning all that was taught to us

    let go of the righteous and sacred

In favor of whatever dust motes 

    of reality land in our hands

    when we are very, very still?

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness