A Haloed Moon by Don Brandis

 

Thắng-Nhật Trần

A Haloed Moon

A harvest moon this time, bold as a rooster’s crow

showing what we’d watched growing, nurturing

but not harvesting, as a mostly 

but not entirely an imperfect witness

surrounding it as a halo, diffusing its light 

blurring, scattering, distorting its clarity 

softening, mythologizing what would be 

just what it is and us seeing it so.

Voices of ice particles in the upper atmosphere

as fog haloes approach headlights

in the night.  Can we just see, without reflection?

Stonehouse, in his mountain hut,

regards us as he does his books of sutras

long unread that have become home to silverfish. 

He’s become a source of sutras, no longer 

needs their texts as he would have us do.

Anyone can do this, he says.

When we feel his eye upon us 

not just across 7 centuries 

but in the timeless Now,

we look away.   © Don Brandis

Don Brandis

Don Brandis lives quietly outside Seattle, reading and writing poems when they show up.  He has a degree in philosophy and a long fascination with Zen.  Some of his poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Black Moon Magazine, Blue Unicorn, Last Leaves, and elsewhere.  A book of his poems, called Paper Birds (Unsolicited Press, 2021), is available.  He hasn’t read your poems either, unless he did so without knowing they were yours.  

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