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Writ in Moonlight: two poems by Royal Rhodes


Art piece: angel with wings, eyes looking downward, soft gold and taupe colors, except for the bright red heart she is holding, image by Andre Eggenschwiler, on Pixabay, modified.


















angel, image by Andre Eggenschwiler, on Pixabay



WRIT IN MOONLIGHT  

 

It marks me as a child of time—

the changing moon that measures out my days.

All life is change.

 

This roiling road dust moons have tracked,

criss-crossing and overlapping routes that end

with waning light.

 

The monthly moon that draws so close

coats my tongue or standing at a distance

liquifies into the lake.

 

It pulls upon an inland sea, as cold

as stone, with questions pinned to both my eyes

doubts flood to fill.

 

In that space any answers come

from darkness, pretending to be light

with varied names: Hunter's, Blood, or Worm.

 

Other luminescences filled the yard:

jars of fireflies, or the first star meant for wishes

that never worked.

 

Did even one star notice any wish

or the tiny deaths they winked at and returned

to their own lonely place?                                

 

If I opened wide my eyes, would stars

spill out, as I burst with fire, which is what love

fashions out of me?

 

 

  

                              *


 


VIA CRUCIS: A GOOD FRIDAY DEATH

 

 

He would not last through Friday afternoon,

the nurses said; at least it would be soon.

 

The others came, and each one stayed a shift,

an hour to watch him wake and slowly drift.

 

He said he heard celestial music boom,

like William Blake when angels filled his room,

 

and dreamt a greedy dream: reunion there

with people loved and lost in empty air.

 

A photo caught him laughing—not forlorn—

a time when none here watching had been born.

 

His death would solve for them a rising tension:

fear he would outlive his meagre pension.

 

Each hoped unscathed to dodge mortality,

like the soul that none of them could see.

 

"Do you love me, love me, love?" It burned

his throat—these words for which he always yearned.

 

The world was where he never found a place,

or made a judgment he himself could face.

 

None would say a rosary, but spoke

how he would vanish soon in faceless smoke,

 

a livid corpse until on Easter Day

to rise from sweaty sheets and fly away.

 

He startled them with his long, final breath:

"Now and at the hour of our death."




_________________________






Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator.

He lives now in rural Ohio, amid Amish farms

and sheep pastures. His poems have been

published in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

He spends his days reflecting on the wonder

of God's good earth.









July 2024 issue

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cmbharris
cmbharris
23. Juli 2024

Amazing poems by Royal Rhodes: from the agonizing "Do you love me, love me, love?" to

"would stars

spill out, as I burst with fire, which is what love

fashions out of me?

Gefällt mir

Powerful work, so glad I read these poems this evening.

Gefällt mir

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