MESSENGER

    MESSENGER

Ladies and gentlemen,

I come before you tonight

as messenger of the moon,

our sibling, our sister,

child of the Earth, like us,

but exiled forever

to orbit at a distance.

 

My task is to announce

estimated times of arrival,

to remind of proper names,

all forgotten except for Harvest,

names bestowed by American Indians,

themselves misnamed since they were

neither Indian nor American,

having been here centuries

before Americus Vespucci.

I also describe her many phases,

new moon, blue moon,

crescent, quarter, gibbous,

waxing, waning, and just plain full,

plump, golden, radiant,

as she rises in the East

every month, everywhere,

best seen on horizons uncluttered,

such as seashores, deserts, battlefields,

where she says to both sides,

“Oh, my little brothers,

I want you,

on the count of three,

to lay down your guns and

kill nothing but the enmity

that eats away your souls,

filling them with false energy;

lay down your guns and

lower the final curtain

on that ancient act

called “Cain and Abel.”

 August 20, 2005