One Dances with the Moon
One dances with the Moon
and rises again with the dawn
forging ephemeral links with
a life fleeing like coastal fog
in the mid-morning heat.
I would not go back once more
to my beginning,
for the climb toward the
dance and later leisure,
was too strenuous----
not worth the candle for
a second time; forged out
of naivete the first time----
so I must count each day
of grace and lose no occasion
of wistful celebration.
I have flayed my flesh like the
salmon swimming up the
few remaining streams to
the holy of holies where
I will repent and lounge with
my excoriations
in a quiet pool in which
the water is crystal and cool.
I will brood and wave my
few remaining fins in a
silent place, dance a few
twirls in the evening of my
travails, leaving nothing
behind save memories
which will flutter down
for an eternity,
subtly informing my heirs
that life was not left unstirred
by its predecessors.
I will have scattered
sandy grains of my presence
beneath the eyelids of the future,
and they will scratch and etch
the messages of a passing,
which will hover, nevertheless,
relentlessly imparting the
message of my dance.
For now, I will dance with the Moon
and rise again with the dawn.
Come with me and celebrate
time which is still carnal
and boundaried with despair
and joy.
Saul Spiro, 06/1994
One Journeys with the Moon, 1999
A Depersonalized Scene
During the nighttime
I cannot see the outside
------thus, cannot see
the unfamiliarity
of a depersonalized scene
within which I have lived
for forty years,
and I am reassured by
what I cannot see;
unlike the face in the mirror
which I cannot avoid,
and which only barely
resembles the one that had
previously been my own.
Daylight and the reflections
in mirrors,
prepare us gradually,
for the loss of Time’s
loan.
Saul Spiro, 05/2004
The Music of Time
If there is the reality
of a shadow,
then there is the usual appearance
of some object of projection.
Life is full of shadowy realities
whose essence adheres within
appearances of denial.
In the end,
perhaps all that is left
is the music of forgotten time,
which fills leftover moments
within infinity ......
the music of time.
Saul Spiro, 02/2013
A Contemplated Visit
I want to go back to that place of my birth
and the nostalgic, bare-boned,
vacuolated memories of those days
in High School, College,
and Medical School in Burlington, Vermont;
the drives through little towns,
first loves-------the beginnings,
so rich and endless with possibility
not yet occluded by advancement
and success;
that time of the end of the beginning
preceding the beginning of the end.
I want to flow again like the melting snow
of a Self’s winter,
which cares not about rivers,
dams, oceans or power------
snow melting carelessly into rivulets
gliding toward the Spring
and Summer of life.
Let me walk down the old streets
which used to be so filled with
naive purpose, magical eternity,
respected authority, exquisite
loneliness, suicidal coupling------
desperate beginnings,
and presume upon the polar ice of time
with the warm breath of thankfulness
for an occasion of celebration
at the renewal of memory,
and the foxiness of return.