Giving Back the Moon
By Duane Ackerson
31 July 2006
. . . I have it right here
under my arm,
wrapped in a notebook
leaking light,
and am coming toward you
with a poem it helped me write . . .
"Taking Back the Moon"—Duane Ackerson
Now that I have it,
what will I do with it?
Will anyone want it back,
or even notice it's missing?
It was just one little moon among many,
the one that shines
for lunatics, lovers, and poets,
the almost-outdated Shakespearian moon,
an anachronism about to be remaindered
before I recalled it.
I left all the other moons in place:
the inventor's moon, constantly reinventing itself,
the actor's moon, out to steal the inventor's masks,
the saint's moon, pale and sometimes drawn
like a child's artwork,
the sorceror's moon gone out for a spell,
the realtor's moon awaiting developments,
the scientist's moon throwing the light of discovery
over half the earth and peeking around
to see what's in back of all the dark.
The list is endless, Horatio:
who knows how many more moons circle the planet?
More than ever circled Jupiter,
each with its own array of satellites on earth.
Music lifts into the night,
assembles itself into a moon—
possibly THE MOON,
maybe a false one,
foxfire designed to lead us
deeper into the swamp
the wrong words
followed by the wrong deeds
have provided us.
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