C'est Moi!

I haven't posted for awhile.
Headaches... and heartaches... and living and loving and long-lasted learning have prevented me. BUT... I just want to share this poem that is so close to my heart. I don't know the girl who wrote it, but I feel like she is my twin... in a sense.
So, here is a tribute to Trisha:

The Moon Was Half Empty That Night
by Trisha Buhrley Lee

I.
Her head
pounded the 1812 Overture
blood flooded with confidence at first
and then shied
and slowed
just as she had.
She stared at the broken glass on the floor
to find her reflection
did not resemble
even vaguely
the way she felt.

“Feel me now and tell me what it’s like!
Tell me what it’s like.
This makeshift of memory
where sickness has no sound
where reason is just too tired
and anger tastes like rice-cakes
tell me what it’s like to feel me.”

Blinking is fatal
but it smells like coffee
and it could keep her awake here
keep her awake and keep her here.
Here.
In this ocean’s insurrection
that believers refuse to believe in
that the disbelieving fear.

II.
Is beauty enough
enough to stop the poet before pain
to keep the raging rib in its place
-for its moment-
electricity among the golden vibrant wheat
just prior to the setting sun?
Rays no longer intending to warm
bow out in brilliance

a curtain-call sunset sends shivers down her November spine.
Is kindness enough
enough to slow the frenzied shark
to hold your open wound to him and stop his charge?
Is loving enough
enough to conjure this moon tonight
to show you the beauty
the kindness
the love?

III.
She looked at the moon through a telescope last night
“Never the same moon twice.”
It was just as bright as tonight
and looking at it made her squint.
She saw Saturn too
“scatter my ashes there.”
It has rings you know.
She saw them.
We’ve been told Saturn had rings.
She saw them.
She’ll show you.
You’ll see what it’s like to feel her.

IV.
She will never stop lighting lamps for the blind
and it just might not be enough.

V.
The moon was half empty that night.