December Moon (1999)

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December Moon (1999)

If loneliness breathes,
then rain is its heart,

always falling to its lowest point
before receding. Water graces us

daily in all its forms – the slowest
drop, the line of ice on the wall,

your breath, so soft and even
in the cool night. But no one,

no thing, can fill the void of
departure. You exhale and turn

away, and the air, with its empty
arms, embraces the space

you’ve left. I feel this daily,
whenever we part. At forty-one

I’ve known you half my life
but have loved you even longer,

through the millennium’s demise
and all that preceded or follows.

The brightest moon for a century to come
is but a shadow in your light.

 

This first appeared on the blog in October 2015. It’s hard to believe that I wrote “December Moon” nearly eighteen years ago. Busy with books, work and life, I didn’t write much in the nineties. But this, the last poem of that decade, recently surfaced. The sentiments are as true today as they were then. I am a lucky man.

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83 thoughts on “December Moon (1999)”

  5. Gorgeous, Bob — the way this poem captures the tension in love between connection and separation. (And I am deeply glad for that postscript, for both of you.)

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  11. Thanks for this lovely read. Despite the gloomy undertone (which may be my own) I read a wide range of emotions in these lines. Sadness, loss, longing, love and contentment even some quantum physicist “I’ve known you half my life but have loved you even longer” … What a blessing to love (and write) this way.

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      • The 64th Nien Nunb is earned by allegorically referring to the original Chalcedony Waves of Queen Amidala… awarded to Nien by Princess Leia herself when he led the Alderaanian survivors off of Sullust past the Imperial Military…

        Now THAT’s a poem about night time!

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          • Do not be troubled. 99.9% of the poetry ever published is worth 15 to 20 Nien Nunbs at best. William Carlos Williams and you are the only 63 Nien Nunb worthy poets I have ever encountered, with Kerouac being a 61 Nien Nunber, and a couple of things by Daniel Paul Marshall being 52 Nien Nunb worthy.

            The maximum number of Nien Nunbs is 65, and the only thing I have ever encountered that earned all 65 is the last 16 seconds of the song “Limelight” by RUSH, starting from Neil Peart’s big drum fill approx. 4 minutes into the song. That ending is so ferociously exciting and musical to me, NOTHING will ever make me feel as musically happy as that ending (starting at 4:02 in the official video).

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