Moon Haiku

Moon Haiku

Marian Webb

Moon Haiku

Text and illustrations Š Marian Webb 2009

1 Past noon the blind moon kisses the eye of the sun, blind in the lit mist.

2 In the dark no thread of light sews the moon’s circle to the hem of dusk.

3 Night falls, cloud-palled—quick— where is it—the quickening invisible ray?

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4 Bright sickle flying in grey glass bound for Venus— O beautiful sky!

5 You drove your shadow in its gilded rim beyond the horns of Saturn.

6 Into the blue hour you trail like the plumed iris of a peacock’s tail.

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7 I could eat the moon, that butter glaze tasty as a good, fat croissant.

8 Half lit, half vacant, weightless you fall through heaven scissored clean in two.

9 Underneath the world the moon is swelling. I dreamed about an island.

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10 Indigo brazens the gold. A dazzle of thorns rings the half-limned hare.

11 Planets trail over the silver beet. Moon climbs high gathering more gold.

12 The seas are a bruise, grey ache of shivering flesh dim as the pale cloud.

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13 All waters follow the cold weight of the stranger like a bow drawn tight.

14 Rising white, a mask of stains, she lures the rivers coursing within dream.

15 At zenith the gold flares rocketing high above midnight’s slim ether.

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16 O you drown the sky you pool, you fountain, you round eye raining your gold!

17 Past midnight the guests begin to leave the wine-stained table, still glowing.

18 Shadows scud over the silver like the flicker of lonely Garbo.

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19 The bat-black roofs edge the blue light of her cloud veil.

That blue steals my breath.

20 I am ripe, I am late fruit longing to fall deep into sweet Shiva.

21 Ripe as the moonbow hanging on the swollen moon rising from flood tide.

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22 Westerly she sails, ghost ship on the blue morning empty as vapour.

23 A sliver of peach you are slim light to dream by.

Slim fruit, slim comfort.

24 Your cold horns point deep into time the dark mother of unending stars.

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25 Dark trees finger you a silver twig befogged, low as the dim foghorn.

26 Back lit, a gold ring you rise in dawn’s sapphire. Red Mars is a ruby.

27 I sift the ashes looking for a trace of that phantasmal silver.

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28 Solar winds rifle memories, reveries, fears— they flurry like hail.

29 And they come to rest like scissor blades precisely pointing the same way.

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marianwebb@planetmail.com