“Okay, my darling, what do you think the Moon wonders about the lunar landing?”
“One small step
for a man
One giant leap
for mankind”
The Moon chuckles to herself
as she remembers
Armstrong’s pronouncement
Didn’t humans realize
that ever since
the Big Bang
Angels held sleepovers
on her surface
Demons reveled in bacchanals
on her Dark Side
And aliens held
feral bake sales
deep within her craters
(Copyright 2021)
“Darling, my darling, whatever does the Moon do for fun?”
La Luna
is an amateur necromancer
levitating
releasing tides
With subtle sleight of hand
evoking songs
from the throats of wolves
With a clever
shift of shape
yanking romance
out a lacy sleeve
To shower Magic
down on lovers
(Copyright 2021)
“Careful, my darling. Can you sense the Moonquake?”
5, 6, 7, 8 …
The Moon is a dancer
Not modern, ballroom, ballet
Strictly burlesque
in a golden shimmy dress
Teasing
Tantalizing
Feathered clouds as fans
Check your local weather station
for future show times
(Copyright 2021)
“So, my darling, how do you think the Moon feels about her Dark Side?”
The Moon pockets her Dark Side
safely away
A secret tintype of its flawed
naked self
Flaunting instead
its burlesque version
garish in the footlights
adored in reflected spotlight
A mirage of beauty
veiled by the Night
But with wig and makeup off
the mirror
tells her otherwise
(Copyright 2021)
“Do you know the Moon’s favorite word, my darling?”
The Moon adores its own image
reflected in others
Planets, satellites
Circles, cycles
The uplifted faces of humanity
each round
all magical
Should it come as a surprise then
that it would be the same
for a word?
Round-bellied vowels
all of them whispered
out the throat
A single-tongued consonant:
EUNOIA*
(Copyright 2021)
“Does the Full Moon enhance anything special for you, my darling?”
The Moon
when she is Full
enhances the tip of
my tongue
High tides
of vocabulary
from the depths of
my Ocean
of Language
(Copyright 2021)
“Darling, oh my darling, what do you think lies beneath the skin of the Moon?”
Under the leathery surface
of Galactic stone and bone
lies a ball of string
connecting unrelated things
winding each into a
unified sphere
Unforgiven sins of Jupiter
Dropped notes from the songs
of the Pleiades
A gray hair plucked
from the tail of a comet
Nothing is incidental
(Copyright 2021)
“Tell me, my darling, what is the connection between High Tide and Full Moon?”
The Moon fancies
an occasional dabble
in Magic
An eclipse here
Touch of blue there
But her personal favorite
is to hold her breath
until she is Full
Thus levitating the tides
of the Earth’s oceans
(Copyright 2021)
“Oh, my darling, please invent a Moon Myth just for me.”
Once
long ago
when the Earth was very young
when Life was just beginning
to consider a tentative stretch
of its atoms
The Galaxy was vast
and the Earth was lonely
It had not yet
pinpointed the demarcation
between alone
and lonely
That woiuld come with
the Mammals
The long dark nights
were achingly lonely
But then
in one monotonous revolution
A stone appeared
close enough to the Earth
that it could reach out
and catch it
“I shall call you Moon,”
Earth said
squealing as the Sun
approved the adoption
in an unexpected array
of brilliance
(Copyright 2021)
“My darling, why do you love the Wolf Moon so much?”
I have learned
to shut my eyes
to the distraction of
the Full Moon’s brilliance.
To listen completely
to the utter silence
after midnight
That deafening void
Then and only then
on nearly-existent breezes
I might hear
the feral howls
as it prowls
the perimeter of the
January Full Moon
(Copyright 2021)
Donna Dakota in Word 