Thistle June
The Cistern Moon
Twilight drags out the night sky, dark blue, clear.
Venus falls to the horizon, a seed
of the stars to come, and the sun persists
just as an echo – a sliver which will
reveal only shadows. The cistern moon
grins slyly at the earth, keeping her watch.
…………no distractions in
…………darkness. all is mere outline.
…………perfect clarity.
Sat in a field fixed on the earth, I watch
the cistern moon rise, free of burdens, clear
in her path. I’d like to follow the moon
across the sky. I play with maple seeds,
idly dropping them to land where they will,
thinking saplings might grow there and persist.
…………a seed stretches high
…………to the sky, deep underground,
…………reaching, insistent.
These seeds might become trees that can persist
once I’ve left this place. Nobody will watch
over them, but that won’t matter. They will
continue to branch and reach into clear
spaces before dropping more twirling seeds,
watered by the light of the cistern moon.
…………lives change and persist.
…………evolutionary trees
…………branch eternally.
As I sit in place, lost in thought, the moon
crosses the sky, focused and persistent.
Alone, through empty darkness she proceeds
while the earth below dreamily keeps watch.
My thoughts are obscure, but the moon’s light is clear.
I am unfocused. She knows her own will.
…………water does not wish
…………to be held against its will.
…………it knows where to go.
When I find myself lacking strength of will,
it helps to go out and gaze at the moon.
Tonight her crescent points up to the clear
dark, forming a curved cistern. I persist –
though I’m growing tired – in this night’s watch,
trusting the moon will water my hope’s seed.
…………cistern moon collects
…………blue skies in her basin and
…………pours them to the earth.
Buried within my heart’s soil there’s a seed
of what’s to come for me, of who I will
become as years pass away. If I watch
over it, maybe it will grow well. Moon-
light only accents the dark. Night persists
in keeping its secrets. Nothing is clear.
…………the moon watches whole
…………hemispheres. i see only
…………to the horizon.
I wake, maple seeds in my hair. The moon
just barely persists in daylight. She will
end her watch soon. The sky’s lonely blue – clear.
_______________
Thistle June is a queer writer from East Tennessee whose work is heavily informed by the physical and social landscape of the region. They use poetry as a means of exploring questions of hope, transformation, and interconnection. Their work has previously appeared in the Berkeley Poetry Review and Lenticular under the name Hogan.
Author’s Backstory/Crafting Elements: At the beginning of spring I was at a small party hosted by my former poetry teacher. We were gathered around a fire as the sun was setting, and the moon, just coming into view, was a crescent with its horns pointed upward and its belly curved toward the horizon. Someone asked my teacher and I if there was a name for when the crescent moon was positioned like that, evidently believing that as poets we would have special knowledge of lunar orthonyms. Neither she nor I knew, so people began suggesting names. One idea was the cistern moon, because it looked like it could hold water. I quite liked that suggestion and decided to run with it.
At the time I wrote this poem, I was at a crossroads in my life, a moment of great uncertainty. So while the scenario of spending a night in a field intently watching the moon’s trajectory is fictional, it reflects my mental state at the time. The sestina was the perfect form for this piece, an obsessive form which turns over an idea incessantly, considering it from every angle and permutation. However, I wanted some space to expand on certain images and themes more freely than the sestina would traditionally allow, so I nested a haiku between each stanza. These interjections are each a deeper look at a facet of the central idea.
Editor’s Comments/Image Credit: This is a waxing crescent moon sometimes called a wet moon because it’s shaped like a bowl. The image credit of the moon with its horns pointed up somewhat (NASA, https://www.almanac.com/captivating-crescent-moon) is filtered using a cool winter sky prism filter to get the blue sky (ToolWhiz photo).