Today’s prompt was to write a poem about the moon– what, you want me to write about one of my favorite topics? I’ve got a few moon poems already, and this website isn’t named Pen and Moon for nothing. The trick is to find something new-ish to say.  Here’s what I came up with.

Moon-Love

In my mind
the moon was about men for too long.
The man in the moon, we all heard that
when finding the golden face in the sky.
I was 4 when the first man walked on the moon,
watching the grainy footage on a black-and-white TV.
I didn’t really understand, but my dad was excited,
so I knew it was big. 

I wasn’t into space or Star Trek or science fiction.
I mostly shrugged when it came to the moon.
What’s the fuss? I didn’t want to travel by rocket ship.

Somewhere along the way as I grew,
I fell in love with the moon,
though she wasn’t a man at all.
Looking up at her luscious peach gaze,
I felt the connection,
my mama moon watching over me,
her monthly cycle tied to my own.
I imagined how ancient women learned to
time their bodies by the phases and faces
of this wise woman in the sky.

And Earth, always in a dance with the moon, symbiotic,
her gravitational caresses, her feminine touch,
creating each day’s tides.

I still don’t want to fly in a rocket ship to the moon.
I don’t think I’d find her there.
She’s here, after all, in our sky every night
watching, protecting, urging us to care–
for ourselves and our planet.
She is our beautiful mama
circling round and round,
and she wants us to be here
with her.
gazing in mutual admiration
with one another
for a long, long time.

 


Photos courtesy of Erik McClean, Venti Views, and Film Plus Digital on Unsplash.com