Winter Moon (Three Voices)

Underneath the winter-stricken trees

with their ragged claws

is where I lost my heart,

is where -

Hush, my love. Let me

kiss those words from your lips,

leaving just the bulbs, that spring 
might finger into a promulgation.

Besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says,

Can you hear what I say?

I say nothing. Come be here with me

in this nothing. You can call me skull,

pallid husk, pregnant egg; but I

am just old. I am so old,

and I know that love lives but briefly.

                        ***

Beside the bird-emptied lake,

reflecting the bird-emptied sky,

is where I saw the lone

crane fly, and that was I, and I -

But hush, my love: you're not

bereft of your feathers, you're not

some barren woman. You're a winter bird;

and I? I am just your perch.

And besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says,

Can you not hear what I say?

I say nothing. Come dwell here

in nothing - have everything.

You can call me pale and I won't

blush; or a bird's egg waiting to be crushed.

But I am old; and I know love chiefly.

                        ***

Now, on the cottage bed, I am

spread out like a sacrifice. Come

whittle away your whittling knife.

Unperch me, devour me. Moon and scour me.

Into your life I am come,

but not to bring a hunter's gun;

but I shall bring my whittling knife, and 
lay with you - weave me a sky, be my wife.

But besides, can't you hear

the moon? It says nothing.

                 ***

I am here with you now,

in this nothing, the still

of our breathing.

And we

are everything.