Blue Moon Blood Moon Eclipse

Wearing a shadow for a covering,
in the coolness of a morning that is not—
for night and day are but a seeming,
guiding that rarest of miracles: vision

—Over this silent music presides the moon,
calling all divine light to rise and water to lie,
and quickening every frozen seed to song
from all measures of waiting slumber.

Such mathematical and unseasonal observances,
of celestial bodies hurtling forward through space,
should swerve and realign misguided churnings
that might trouble a perfect harmonic turn.

In this here and now, wearing a shadow for a covering,
water lies in hushed witness to what eternal moment,
seemingly, is reflected on this still and tensile Bay,

unaware of any unseemly ripple over the fabric of time.

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Long Night Moon

Blooming night,
sailing the height
while earth is still,
comfort the heavy heart.

Cold the night,
hardscrabble the ground, despite
all efforts to till
our soil to its best;
perhaps a forgotten art.

Clear, the sight,
on this, the longest night;
watching, be eased, if chill,
awaiting warmth, as test
and testament to sum and part.

O, Maternal Night
and all stars in flight,
watch over valley and hill,
call Dawn to make blessed,
and release all seeds to new start.

Your cool gaze
            will have prepared earth
            for renewal and rebirth;
may it be to a new and more wondrous phase.

© 2013 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Moon Seekers

They watch the sky by day,
Scanning for the soft night orb,
Devoted, even while the sun's hot flame obscures it.

Her name was the first word they uttered,
Hers the first tune that they ever heard;
She is mother to all creation.

Her changing form is a cyclical mystery,
To be observed, to be studied, to be mastered,
Piece by piece, sliver by sliver, day by day,
From their rising in the morning
To the afternoon siesta,
And on waking from thence to
Night's sweet-dream sonambulance,
They track her progress through the gardens of Eternity.

Rare daylit sightings are cause for celebration,
While the backlit splendor of night's full array
May send shivers of glee down their spines,
Past their knees and into their toes,
Where a hop or a jump sends it all back up
To rush out through their moon-like smiles as squeals of delight…

For they, like the stars, know the tune by heart,
For it is the music of the spheres, and they play a part;
For it is her tune that sings them to their rest, then to their reawaking start.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Wholeness

The moon is not its phases.

The moon is the moon,
no different in the four directions
as from a cloud a boat or the shore,
complete in itself,
whole.

This is true for all and of all.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen