Moon Haiku
Marian Webb
Moon Haiku
Text and illustrations Š Marian Webb 2009
1 Past noon the blind moon kisses the eye of the sun, blind in the lit mist.
2 In the dark no thread of light sews the moon’s circle to the hem of dusk.
3 Night falls, cloud-palled—quick— where is it—the quickening invisible ray?
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4 Bright sickle flying in grey glass bound for Venus— O beautiful sky!
5 You drove your shadow in its gilded rim beyond the horns of Saturn.
6 Into the blue hour you trail like the plumed iris of a peacock’s tail.
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7 I could eat the moon, that butter glaze tasty as a good, fat croissant.
8 Half lit, half vacant, weightless you fall through heaven scissored clean in two.
9 Underneath the world the moon is swelling. I dreamed about an island.
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10 Indigo brazens the gold. A dazzle of thorns rings the half-limned hare.
11 Planets trail over the silver beet. Moon climbs high gathering more gold.
12 The seas are a bruise, grey ache of shivering flesh dim as the pale cloud.
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13 All waters follow the cold weight of the stranger like a bow drawn tight.
14 Rising white, a mask of stains, she lures the rivers coursing within dream.
15 At zenith the gold flares rocketing high above midnight’s slim ether.
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16 O you drown the sky you pool, you fountain, you round eye raining your gold!
17 Past midnight the guests begin to leave the wine-stained table, still glowing.
18 Shadows scud over the silver like the flicker of lonely Garbo.
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19 The bat-black roofs edge the blue light of her cloud veil. That blue steals my breath.
20 I am ripe, I am late fruit longing to fall deep into sweet Shiva.
21 Ripe as the moonbow hanging on the swollen moon rising from flood tide.
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22 Westerly she sails, ghost ship on the blue morning empty as vapour.
23 A sliver of peach you are slim light to dream by. Slim fruit, slim comfort.
24 Your cold horns point deep into time the dark mother of unending stars.
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25 Dark trees finger you a silver twig befogged, low as the dim foghorn.
26 Back lit, a gold ring you rise in dawn’s sapphire. Red Mars is a ruby.
27 I sift the ashes looking for a trace of that phantasmal silver.
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28 Solar winds rifle memories, reveries, fears— they flurry like hail.
29 And they come to rest like scissor blades precisely pointing the same way.
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marianwebb@planetmail.com