by Christen Lee
Three nights after the new moon,
I search the sky for what’s almost not there.
You can just make out that thread of white
piercing the black
like a needling comma,
A pause,
while the world continues
counting days and moons,
years cycling the burning sun
on this earth with its birthing and dying
and everything that fills the in between.
But tonight it’s spring
and nearly alive
on this green stretch of possibility.
See how hope pokes through,
soft shoots rise up
to face the waxing moon.
Of course it’s only natural
to fall in love with what’s born
and to suffer what’s lost.
And it’s so easy to feel time’s gravity
in the thick blood dusk,
the night closing in like a lover’s goodbye
leaving us tilted on earth’s axis
and spinning toward ruin.
Look at the bird with the broken wing
lying motionless under the nesting oak.
And I think, at least he knew that rapture of flight
out here in this sacred space.
And in this way I bargain my sadness
on and on.
We spend our days threading
new ways through joys and sorrows
on and on.
So I root for the moon to spot me
thread me back onto the solid ground.
How I need a silver lining
that cosmic life line to steady me
in this giant empty
that reaches on and on
as far as the eye can believe.
Christen Lee is a family nurse practitioner in Cleveland, Ohio. Her writing has been featured in Rue Scribe, The Write Launch, Aurora, Humans of the World, Sad Girls Club, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology, Wingless Dreamer, The Voices of Real 7 Compilation, Ariel Chart, and The Elevation Review among others.