The Moon

I, too, am tired of it. And yet, like an old love,
it comes to us, illuminating the bare walls

of our houses, catching its hems
on our thresholds, carrying its little cup of blossoms.

We are done with it.
Aren’t we done with it?

We have told ourselves
only grace can change us;

we have told ourselves
the craft is not the magic;

we have told ourselves
the myths are in our hands.

And yet, Issa wrote to us, and ever.
Let us walk out through the summer grass

and be there. Let us look up through the deepest leaves
and open. Let us wait, then,

while the ancient things
are woken, because haven’t

we always been lonely,
haven’t we looked up

into the wild skies
and asked, too, to be luminous

and ruined,
and risen like this cold stone in the darkness

and changed in it as radiantly as we can?