Until No Moon Is Seen on the Water

To refine, to clarify, to intensify that eternal moment in which we alone live there is but a single force—the imagination.

—William Carlos Williams, Spring and All

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT

—Diane di Prima, “Rant”

Steal a moon on the water with a bucket.
Keep stealing until no moon is seen on
the water.

—Yoko Ono, “Water Piece”

I don’t need a mad president
to threaten to blow up an entire civilization
for the eternal moment to reveal itself
in every particular shining from the inside.

I don’t need to teeter on the Eve of Destruction
to bow to the stunt of the trees all flowering at once,
day-old spaghetti, discount chocolate bunnies,
you puzzling in a dark room with a headlamp on.

I won’t fear Tuesday at eight o’clock on a week
already bursting with mysteries: anniversaries
of births, deaths, resurrections, ends to the suffering
of beloved creatures who are sometimes the self.

Like Lauren waking up from an induced coma
two years ago tomorrow during a total solar eclipse,
her whole family around her, and saying first thing
like a gracious hostess, Thank you all for coming.

Like finding out Earl was born on Contessa’s death
anniversary, two days from now, and how he still runs
from window to window as I open the curtains,
thanking the sparrows and chipmunks for coming.

What some see as whimsy, a waste of a bucket or
a moonlit night, a way of happening, a mouth,
I call a counterforce to annihilation. I swear
the only way to survive this world is to be a poet in it.