“Tell Me What You Feel in Your Room When the Full Moon Is Shining in Upon You and Your Lamp is Dying Out, and I Will Tell You How Old You Are, and I Shall Know If You Are Happy.” - Frederic Amiel
Lunar eclipse at moonset,
Super Moon, hyper-clarity
in that way that seems fake
it is so real. Absolute white light,
startling. Absolute quiet.
Absolute waiting. A settling sort of feeling,
sand running through water,
at the bottom at rest
as the water returns to its purity.
That sort of feeling, late forties,
been through so much and knowing
well just how much still to go through,
knowing well this second of unusual beauty
is precarious, is upon a pin,
the sort of place where angels dance.
“Patience” Means “Suffering”
Impatient with small talk
impatient with most talk
talking will not help it,
waiting for it to get better
it is not,
what to do then
how to muddle
how to abide
the situation out here
is not going to change
where and how
do I find the space
in here
to live anyway
to find the patience
that is not waiting.
Learning the Horrible Lessons
Sometimes you are in Hell,
can be calm, crack a window,
let in some fresher Hell air;
sometimes you are just in Hell and it is unbearable.
In mortal fear, there is no such thing as crazy.
In the most primal states
you are reminded that you are a body,
as the hot hook twists your intestines,
drawn, quartered,
prickles of adrenaline,
a sheen over skin,
each heartbeat a death
then yank back to life,
a blitzkrieg of neurons hammering,
Run! Stop! Stay!
Stay. That is another one.
Maybe the hardest, to not physically leave
and to not mentally leapfrog
into past into future
to tolerate now.
Maria Berardi's poems have appeared online, in print, in university literary journals, meditation magazines, newspapers, and art galleries. Her first book, Cassandra Gifts, was published in 2013 by Turkey Buzzard Press, and she is working on her second, Pagan. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Her process is one of listening for transmissions and trying to catch them on paper before they dissipate: the glimpse, the complicated knowledge.
“Learning the Horrible Lessons” first appeared in SIAMB! Issue #9
