Circling the Blue Moon

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Spring’s purple chia crests and crimson-spotted rockrose face
curved, wilted, and dropped, but I still walk this trail
in awe. In summer, I didn’t go there at all, I floated
in circles on my back and watched the neighbor’s

silver-tipped eucalyptus tree shimmer in the heat,
imagined the trail sun-heartened, baked, a dried-out
canvas. There was one word, it was his diagnosis,
thrumming in my mind, a sore wound to tongue.

Two nights ago, I mapped the grief, white-hot to touch,
counted the times I’ve made my body a bridge, ground
the toothache of my heart, catalogued drops of pinprick dew,
dragged my fingers along dense moss rock—and remembered

my life. So much was taken, but not this holy place,
its fog shroud of comfort. Some things can be brand-new.

 

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By Rebecca Maker

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Rebecca Maker is a nonfiction book editor and emerging writer. She is working on poems about family, nature, and her grandparent’s central California ranch. She is published in Poet Lore and is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2024 Bread Loaf participant. She lives in Southern California.