Her Moon

He arrived at her place
in the middle of his day.
And the air seemed fresher
than he'd ever remembered it.

Smiling from some distance,
framed there in her doorway,
she seemed to him an apparition
from some heaven--
if only for a moment.

Her eyes beckoned him toward her
and standing aside the open door,
she welcomed her beloved
guest.

The afternoon was carefully spent,
music and dream
were blended and consumed,
till both were sated
and serenely drifting.

She asked him to wait there
and watch her moon
while she went for smokes and
something else--he didn't hear.


The curtain flew as the door closed.

Much later, he stepped out onto the porch
and looked up to see this moon.
He reached out, longing to hold
the thing in it that was hers.
His heart stirred.

But every time he tried
to touch it,
to know her secret,
her moon drew back, unwilling, unyielding.

He puzzled,
strangely sad and weak.
For he had known how to cradle and caress
her light before.
His heart sank.

And it came to him, gradually,
that it was her purpose
to let him stand alone in that place,
to learn in those interminable silver minutes,
those things which she could not bear to tell him herself.

He turned away after a while
and he moved from the porch,
but not inside to wait.
He had only been a guest.

written by a longtime friend of mine

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