Lunulae, Quernstones



Daisy moon

peeping at me

this long, black, Janus January

‘Go away’ my heart cries

‘away from my eyes

- you betrayed me, old crumpet face

and now you only remind me, wretch, of my wretchedness


How could you grow full for some other girl

when I loved you so?’

In answer —

she opens her petals through the midnight door

she glints white as quartz between the forest branches

she pretends to be a star in the chink of broken rafters

she leaps after me over rooftops as I run from her

she paints herself on the harbor water

she winks in an ebony mirror

she shows me

the woman with the child curled in her arms


Since the first slim petal, the rocking cradle

the light on the rim of a cup

she has been laughing and pointing

to my storm drenched heart that bears her image

and to the wild raindrops like tears, scattered

against the window over the mirror

‘Round as the mirror

round as the water surrounding the earth

round as a chimney pot

the holes of borers, the tree trunks, the flowers,’

says she, ‘round as your eye, and sweet

as your belly am I

and old as the miracle that makes you young again.’


So I go into the garden at midnight

I venture between the trees

I shall delight in the dereliction

I shall fly on dark and secret wings

I shall swim ’though the sea be cold

and I’ll not deny the love in my heart

so like the lotus and the new babe

And the cup lifting on the wind like a dress

shall be full of nectar


And I will laugh too

when my dreams return to you

I will see the tears become stars and fall to earth

and each will grow up newly about you

queen daisy, in the long, green grass