You’re lucky to get one
at least one you notice.
Then in one month it’s two,
and two that you’d not just have heard about
in the usual shapeless fashion –
maybe from that coiffed TV anchorwoman
yam-yammering on
about this or that Weird Twist of Nature;
two weeks ago it was the drought,
the day before yesterday a hurricane
bent on blowing away the Republican Convention,
and who would mourn that?
But you can’t expect Nature to save us,
given the abuse we’re handing her.
So you let such hopes go the way
of yet another zucchini from Ted.
However it was you learned of its coming,
on exactly those two nights
you looked up
to a radiant face
that slapped you
with the force of the pointe shoes of a ballerina
rappelling down the arid cliffs of Greenland,
commanding you to halt
your pathetic rush there or back
and behold that Other,
distant,
sailing
far above your baffled puzzlement about
who Catherine had really loved that dazzling autumn when you struck out east,
what propelled your idiot six-year quest to make engineers obey the forest,
where they buried Mugsy, after they told you they’d Found Her a New Home,
when you might stumble upon Wisdom,
why Marie, stunning in her mink coat,
sent you that revolutionary Dear-John letter
counseling you to stop yearning to gorge
your hungry fists on her dark curls
and seek solace among the workers.
To double your awe
there were two moons,
two in one month,
each of them different as twins can be.
The first riding a scowling sky over Kootenay Lake
that threatened to make a mouthful of the main show.
The second gliding into view
with an entourage of lustrous feather clouds
gathered in mourning about their goddess,
holding a mirror to the Arctic islands
dissolving beneath them.
Resplendent was each moon,
and, you flatter yourself,
charmed at noting, for once, you –
you, with eyes fixed on the hunt for pennies underfoot –
in the rapt audience.
Anchorwoman tells you it’ll be 2015
before there’s another.
As usual, she’s lying,
playing you for a fool –
to believe that you,
or any of us,
will see the like
of this
again.
Victoria August 2012