It’s a big deal when your baby sister turns 50! Life’s a big deal all around!
On Finding a 2021 Moon Calendar in March 2022
(and not being able to recall most of the moons)
I remember one moon, my husband and I searched for it
after picking up take out, parked in a parking lot by water
and watched it creep above clouds.
It was cold and I remember
his arms around me as I leaned against him,
thinking this moment is worth it, the rigors of relationship.
And finding the moon rise from my new apartment,
where the disc is a frisbee in a field at a music festival,
while the streetlight, a headliner, hogs center stage.
The moon calendar lived in a pencil case,
clipped into my daytimer.
I think we should always have them,
pencil cases, ideally with colored pencils,
an eraser, a pencil sharpener.
It lived next to a few blank checks
and a card of stamps,
we should always have those too.
The moons fell on the same numbered days in
July and August, September and October
November and December.
Does this happen every year?!
Why is earthliness still such a mystery to me?!
Today is the third full moon in 2022,
I can’t remember the first and second,
they are a forgettable meal, leftovers.
I am on a plane flying to Sacramento
for my sister’s 50th birthday.
As I walk to the bathroom I count eight books being read
and one yellow bandana worn,
they are signs of magic, like singing and starlight.
This poem is ambitious, it wants all the things -
transcendence in the ordinary, commentary on life’s meaning,
tossed with midlife musings.
This poem says fuck you to inferred themes,
wants its purpose to be overt,
explicit, it wants length and breadth,
an ocean beach with a tourist town.
My sister has been one of the celestial bodies I orbit.
Half century moon, spring moon,
the moons of her life are like birds nests
still visible in the early spring trees.
We honor her with salmon mousse,
and artfully placed potato chips
at a newly renovated hotel.
We honor her with brunch
and with teenagers who help make the brunch
and look at their phones
while sitting on the couch close together.
We hike and overlook a canyon and honor her.
My sister is poised, pregnant with something
other than another, Herself.
I imagine a phase beyond the full moon,
fuller, glowing, shimmering.