Every breath an altar
To what remains unsaid

Each tear
A cathedral

In her gauzy garments
Above the bowing trees
The moon has many lovers
In the sighing breeze.

They all take her dancing
In exotic lands
They give her sparkling diamonds
They kiss her milk-white hands.

She is round & fullsome
Or slender as a waif
When she is then waning
Her flowers are kept safe.

Silken skeins of darkness
When she's waxing full
Are parted by her brightness
She is NEVER dull!

Her beaux are all so courtly
But she eschews them all
Her only love can make her pale
She burns at his call...

She lets out her moonbeams
Through her eyes they weep
She loves the one eclipsing her
They can NEVER meet!

She, so strong within her court
Will curtsey when he comes
The moon has many lovers

But she's taken by the SUN.


Catherine Jarvis
(C) 12/14/2019

Grow a little bit stronger,
Even if just for a while.
When it feels like you're stuck,
And the world’s out of luck,
And nothing can lift up your smile.

We often think that the road has come to an end,
And if your eyes have lost their light,
It’s a sign that now’s the time
To be stronger,
A drop but stronger,
To be stronger.

I need no crimson skies at dawn, nor warmth of morning's light.
I need no songs the world can sing, nor colors bold and bright.
I need no gold's eternal gleam, nor diamonds' shining grace.
I need no earthly joys or thrills,
No worldly, fleeting trace.

All I wish, all I crave,
Is for you to be real, to feel you're near.
All I wish, all I yearn,
Is to whisper a soft "hello" so clear.

We are Slowly Dying
(A response to Thanatopsis)

We are slowly dying
Myself, and these old pines
A little here, a little there
Almost imperceptibly
Death on her cat’s feet comes

I sit with these old friends,
longing their lost limbs
some already fallen
some just now losing needles
like me, my hair

We sit quietly,
Neither saying much
Neither needing to
All has been said and done
Or need never be

Soon it will be time
Signs are certain now
All point in one direction
We, transition forests
Bow to new emperors

We’ve no need to complain
Of bugs eating their bark
Or bugs eating me
It would do no good
So we sit silently

How to end this tale
Now that it's been told?
Perhaps a sweet rhymed couplet?
Or some old musty moral?

The sunset goes down with us.
No meaning does it give us.