A missing moon

Mediocre poetry for a new year

Image of the full moon reflecting on still water with city lights twinkling in the distance. But I didn’t see this moon, or take this photo.

It was a full moon last Saturday.
A wolf moon, made for winter’s frigid howling.
A super moon, low and large.
A full moon in Cancer, a good time to feel things or take a bath or maybe vacuum the house.
It was a full moon last Saturday, and I missed it.

Of course she still beamed, spilling herself wide and round across each and every sky.

But while my friends shared photos of her, glossy and gold over quiet waters at the beach, over frosty snow before dawn, I didn’t catch a glimpse.

Image of a snowy, forested backyard illuminated by the light of the full moon. But I didn’t see this moon, or take this photo.

Even in the days before and after her apex I would say to myself, tonight I’m going to look. Just look out the window. Go see. But I never did.

And the thing is, I never look for the moon because I don’t have to. She comes for me, follows me close.

She nudges me with her tides, with her unapologetic fullness and waning, drawing me ever so reluctantly alert and out of bed.

But this time, nothing.

Not even a shimmer on the neighbor’s roof as I loaded the dishwasher, tidied the pillows on the couch, poured my tea.

Image of the full moon hanging in a pink sunset over city buildings. But I didn’t see this moon, or take this photo.

While the full wolf super moon in Cancer hung like the oldest, most beautiful idea out my doorstep, I slept.

Nothing to capture on film, no dreaming to recall. Just dark and simple rest.

In the morning, I woke up steady, forgetting to look for her again.

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In January of last year, I said I wanted more poetry in my life. While that did mean I wanted to write more poetry, it also meant I wanted my life to feel more like poetry.

Noticing more of the small stuff.
Soaking in everyday beauty.
Seeing, hearing and feeling between the straight and narrow lines.

The quote of Spanish poet, Jaime Gil de Biedma, very much rang, and still rings, true:

I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.

Being a poem sounds like adding something easy and beautiful to the world. It sounds quiet more than busy, nuanced more than logical, like texture, and shared humanity. It sounds inviting, like the exhale. It sounds both more and less: more honest, somehow, and revealed; less trying to figure things out.

And then there’s this little blurb I jotted down years ago:

The truth is, I almost always wish I’d said less.

I’ve done this dance—wanting to say so much more, in writing and elsewhere, and wanting to say a lot less—for years. Lifetimes? It feels very much like a pulse or calibration I am meant to befriend.

I often feel like I have words swimming, sometimes clawing up the walls, inside me, crying to get out. And I often feel lost in words, inundated by so much commentary—my own and of others—that even when meaningful and important, the words just feel like noise.

Last year has come and gone, and it did not feel like a poem. I also did not write or read much poetry. It was a remarkable year, truly, of deep healing, but the light touch and language of the poem was not something I could see and hear.

When my hunger for poetry re-announced itself at the end of last year, I felt some panic. I felt too far gone in my big-feeling but also logical, figuring-out ways. I didn’t know where or how to begin. I’d open a blank page on my laptop and have absolutely nothing to say.

And then I remembered how it goes. I remembered that, kind of like the moon, I’ve never really so much set out to write a poem…gone looking…as I have let a poem find me. The best poems I’ve written have been agreements; a few words or an image or a single line dropping into my mind or heart or I don’t know where, to which I’ve said yes and agreed to carry on.

So over the past few days, this has been my practice. First, recommitting to being a poem, as cheesy as that sounds. And then opening my eyes and ears, heart and mind, to see and listen.

The poetry that’s come hasn’t been stellar, like the one above. But it has been honest, imperfectly easy and beautiful, and that’s a start.

I still have a lot of words piling up, some longer form work to invest in outside of this little newsletter. For now, I’m feeling this for us. Maybe more poetry, more poem, in your inbox. Less for the sake of less. Less, sometimes, as more.

xo,
Christa