One Moon On

It’s new moon and I must confess

Before the dark makes me digress

One full cycle, all four phases

Have turned you over in their gazes

And every face of me agrees

You’ve gotten underneath my freeze

I stand now at a forking tracks

One path forward, one path back

The old pain whispers: run, retreat,

Put miles between your heart’s beat

For you are culprit, cause, and cure

A coming undone I can’t endure

A getting whole I can’t ignore

I want to ruin, watch it burn

Before the roots have soil to learn

Those stringy tendrils, pale and new

Creeping toward the dark and dew

I could cut them where they grow

Spare myself what roots must know

But what good of hindered green?

From gardens that have never been?

So hear me now, by absent light:

I shan’t take flight, I shan’t take fright

No cowardice — and so I’ll stay

You’ve given me no cause to stray

That urge to flee comes from within

From every place the hurt has been

So let your depths call out to mine

Across this dark unmoonlit sky

So terrified and thrilled the same

Out of dark, decision came