The Animus Moon

 

The Animus Moon climbs the red rock I cannot,

While still the sky shines o’er canyons of day.

Sun golden, it glows on the tops of the pine trees,

But just the few tallest to thrust to blue sky.

It is as if, parting, the sun hurls back fire,

So aflamed and entorched they become to this place.

 

The River churns down the ancient but re-made,

Course it has chosen each Spring again new,

But dark now the waters are cold in the twilight,

And fully the dank air roils turmoiled along.

 

The trail of today, itself backward ascending,

but winds itself ‘round every rock, tree and stream;

Forever ascending, it comes to the country,

The sere grey expanse that for me now is barred.

 

The Animus Moon climbs the red rock I cannot,

A sylph, she came early; slim, anxious to climb,

A thin weight-less light-arc, ascending past tree dark,

Ascending to summits, past couloirs of stone.

 

The tree-torches fail now, I feel now the sun’s loss.

The Shadows come out of their corners to play.

The Shadows, they rule now, the light is the captive,

Just held in the hand or in points in the sky.

 

The lights of the stars, looking down on the meadow,

Against the dark river and ‘neath the red stone;

The cold Lights of darkness look down on the old man,

Who was but for sunsets, a youth on his climb.

 

The Animus Moon climbs the red rock I cannot,

Now gravid she climbs, though come late to the pitch.

She summits as weightless and looks back upon me,

And slides behind red rock, she looks not again.

 

The Meadow now empty is rank, green and ready,

Awaiting the Young ones, so willing to climb.

 

The River runs onward, abandons the mountain.

The River, away from the heights, ever falls.

It gathers itself from the drips and the sluices,

Of scant enough wetness to water one man.

 

The River it swells so and red rock it grinds fine,

By each and by day and by night as it goes.

 

The Animus Moon climbs a clear sky o’er red hills,

A New Moon, some new moon, some ages from now.

The River flows over the summits of red rock

And slowly brings gently the red to the sea.

 

Wcb 11/28/09

(note: The Animus River flows south through southwestern Colorado through the Grenadier Range. Trapped in a meadow awaiting transport due to poor health, I watched the moon above the distant unclimbable red stone hills.)