It was the Year of the Dragon,
and
the moon was in Gemini
when
I rowed towards the silver eye
resting
on the rim of dark ocean,
water
dripping from the oars
in
the slow cadence of a dirge.
I
was out of my depth in so many ways,
fall
coming on hard and cold,
youth
already spent on the known and old,
on fighting Grendel’s Mother
and
her bitch-heavy pathological urge.
But
then there was Mozart,
A
Little Night Music,
spin and jitterbug
to
infuse this fallen man
with
a few more stuttering steps,
a
few more bittersweet miles.
Was
it a kiss or the mind of God
or
something else entirely
that
I tried to reach on that long-ago night,
an
ampersand that connected cradle to grave,
the
modulation of a Tibetan Buddha’s wave?
It’s
all the same, you know—
the
kiss, the chant, the god, the now,
and yet I loved her song and flow.
I
found a shiny nickel
minted in the Year of the Dragon
on a corner paving stone.
I
polish it once a year with love
before
holding it at arm’s length
against
the glory of the stars.
And
that is enough catharsis to bury the loss.
The
moon is always in my pocket,
no
longer a mariner’s albatross.
~William Hammett
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