Waxing & Waning

Time will sprint

with laughter, but unhealing pain

slows it to a whale’s pace, a crawl along ocean

floors, a century passing in each flash of withdrawal,

moments arbitrarily assigned to seconds, minutes, hours—

the bitter moon’s long blink morphed into a hummingbird’s flap,

the speeding up and glacial freezing of relativity sprung free from

maths and methods with the unwinking eye of Sauron’s gaze. Tell me,

oh goddesses of tides and nights—tell me, Amesemi and Mama Killa,

tell me, Chang’e and Myeongwol, tell me, Anumati and Selardi,

tell me, Artemis and Diana—in your perch atop the world, do

you see where we have fallen far from your song and light?

We cannot worship the dust of the past or unmake

mistakes or unsee massacres, but we might move

forward and heal better here and now

with the cold, white light of your

shy reflections, so pure and

sad and faded.

* * *

Author's note: "Waxing & Waning" is meant to be a shaped poem that resembles the full moon, thus the image at the beginning is to show how this poem should look instead of the text being left-justified.