Horizon Renewal Moon

 

 

Horizon Renewal Moon

New Moon, January 13, 2021

 

We are living

the kind of nadir

that Arabic astronomers knew:

the point furthest from zenith.

As when the sun barely rises

over the crestfallen evergreens

& shuttles through pure air

to settle over leafless birch:

though there are birds still

singing & flying free,

our hearts dwell muted

by violent confusion.

 

So I go seeking peace into the woods

& find the covered face of ancient rock

witness to the unimaginable

spectrum of height & loess

& at the edge of snow is melted ice

clear & jewel-like

& beneath that a palette

of cosmos cooperating

in extraordinary conditions:

lichen—cyanobacteria & fungi

collaborating to live unlikely

on an uneven surface of stone.

 

They curl & swoop in difference,

make tendrils that appear to pirouette

& concoct slow peeling mosaics—

infinite deviations from a single

vibrant theme, repeated patiently

while glowing from within everydayness

they sate my eye’s desire

for harmony & slake

my mind’s wish for beauty

to garland the whole horizon

even while suffering persists.

 

Dawn & day, season & presence,

please make of me a vessel

upon which 20,000 species

of entwined magic

may shiver under stars

& begin to loose their grip

on all that is tight & meager,

releasing every lonely story

into the pervasive astronomy of love.

 

 

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall — suiko.art— Horizon Renewal Moon,  2021. Chestnut skin, buckthorn, wild grape, copper oxide, and acrylic ink on paper, 9×7″.