Luray Gross: If Two People Are Aware of the Rising Moon

When his mind grew empty

and his heartbeat slowed to a vague stutter,

our father no longer walked his fields at night.

.

He did not call to say, “Look at the moon. You have to see it.” 

Even grown, even when his authority rankled,

we had obeyed.

.

Mind empty, he lost hold

of hurts he had suffered, the unrequited loves.  

Shame that had festered seemed to heal.

.

We could not follow him to that country

of no nationality, no creed. None of us but

his granddaughter, who had gone before,

.

though sometimes we nearly met him there 

in a vast silence that covered the world’s persistent hum.

His melancholy had prepared the place

.

since those blue boyhood afternoons 

he stood on the back porch, 

borrowed violin tucked under his chin, 

bow scraping the open strings. 

---

Copyright 2019 Luray Gross. From Lift published by Ragged Sky Press.