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Letter from Insomnia

Mr Okaji always comes through for the #fullmoonsocial. Thanks Robert! Great poem.

robert okaji's avatarO at the Edges

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Posting this in response to Jeff Schwaner’s Full Moon Social. No time to write a new one, so I hope this oldie will do.

Letter from Insomnia

Accepting Li Po’s tragedy,
apocryphal or not,

we embrace her imperfect
reflection
rippling in the breeze,

but manage to surface.

I once thought I would name a child Luna
and she would glow at night

and like Hendrix, kiss the sky.
But that was whimsy

and only candles light this room
at this hour
on this particular day
in this year of the snake.

And what fool would reach for a stone orbiting at
1,023 meters per second?

There are clouds to consider, the stars
and the scattering rain

and of course wine
and the possibilities within each glass
and the drops therein.
We must discuss these matters

under her gaze, where smallness gathers.

This originally appeared in Middle Gray in October…

View original post 18 more words

Super Moon Lunar Eclipse Extra Special Full Moon Social, Already! #fullmoonsocial

So apparently it is like not only a massive super moon this weekend, but also a great lunar eclipse starting around 9pm ET here in the Blue Ridge. What better time than this full moon to launch another #fullmoonsocial event on WordPress and Twitter? The eclipse lasts for three hours or so at a pretty optimal time for many of us, though I am looking at a forecast for overcast skies here in VA Sunday night.

We know that for as long as people have been writing poetry, they have written about the moon. Chinese poets made an art form of this during the T’ang and Sung dynasties that in many ways has yet to be rivaled. Viewing the full moon in September is a ritual to take time to think about friends and loved ones we are separated from by distance, even to think of those special to us we have not yet met.

So during the time the moon is up in your neck of the world–I’m talking to you, Esther! and Leonard! and Emily! and Robert! and C! and M! and Ron! and GG! and Sister M! among others!–take the time to write a poem for someone who may not know you are thinking of them, or may know and be thinking of you, or even for someone you haven’t met yet but who is looking at that same moon, and tag it #fullmoonsocial on wordpress and/or Twitter and/or Instagram. I’ll try and re-blog and re-tweet as I see them.

I’ll just close this invitation with one of my favorite moon poems, by the Japanese poet Masahide, who wrote a poem that can be roughly translated as:

Barn’s burnt down. Now 
I can see the moon better.

See you under the moon!

Fortune

How dark is dark? How wise is wise? --from a fortune cookie 9/18/15

Fortune

How wise is wise? A pretense on paper, a future memory
turned inside out, the container for who we actually

were when it mattered. Wisdom back then was swans
circling and your skin’s glow reinventing morning.

Barely visible in the dark was a fortune

we could spend before dawn. In the gray plague
of this decade, where we fear our own hearts

have slowed to the speed of anachronism
love is thrust upon me like a check at a buffet.

I will pay for everybody and yes I want a copy.

The moon tonight is a fortune cookie on a black plastic tray.
How dark is dark? Have you read in the predawn light the same fortune?

#fullmoonsocial2015 Hey! Supermoon tonight. Write and tag your moon poems…

Remember that fun time we all had, the last time there was a crazy moon out? Write a poem and tag  it on WordPress, Twitter, Instagram, the old barn door, wherever, as #fullmoonsocial2015. Mei Yao-ch’en and I believe you must. Go!

Unclaimed Grave

Note: Mary Tang, a poet I follow and who has been translating my Spring Songs series into Chinese, wrote recently about her grandmother’s life and death, and after reading those posts on her blog I was moved to write the poem below. It is posted with her permission, and directly below is her translation. 

Unclaimed Grave

If you die on a holiday expect      to be buried without ceremony
in the vacant space between      an extended celebration

and getting back to business      as usual but there is nothing
more usual than the dead       Above her unclaimed grave

power lines have been hung       where a marker might
have been a tree is growing       It may only be growing

because those lines opened       up the sky for it to grow
from the matter forgotten by       sons but the tree’s leaves

are her prayer flags       and the wind rushing the gap
are all the other sons       sweeping her grave, they remember

that we were all once inanimate       matter  we were all
each other’s mother even       unintelligent motion

generates respect and love     the hum of the old world’s
roots is louder than       a foot print on the moon

*

你要在春節離去 別寄望後人安葬
過年後便忙開工 你的遺體會被棄
在兩村間的廢地 好讓人如常作業
死人沒有不凡處 那無人打理的墓
頭上已高掛電線 像一個識別標記
墓中爆出了一樹 它可以長高快大
正是電桿的關係 天因它空了大了
子孫不掃的落葉      是她的頁頁禱告
掃墓的風是養子     記掛她變土為母
代她的子孫彌補     欠她的敬愛尊重
本來同是無命物    不論誰是子與母
樹根在土下沙沙    勝月中足跡無痕
(c) Mary Tang 2015