You might slip, you might slide, stumble and fall by the roadside
but don’t let nobody drag your spirit down. I’m talking to you.
Eric Bibb, “Don’t Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down”
No warning and the perigee moon has already risen,
has spanned the low horizon and entered the tangle
of cottonwood branches. How you’d wanted to catch
it sooner, watch it inch over the mesa top. But there
were no bells to herald its glow. No choirs to announce
its ascension. At least you didn’t miss it entire—this low-
hanging phase where it beams through the trees and appears
unnaturally large. Such illusion. You’d think that the moon
could be trapped in the limbs, could stay with you here all night,
Oh! To be able to hold it, to keep it near, to reach
eastward and pluck it from night with bare hands,
cradle it, and then, then what? We cannot own what shines.
And the moon continues its climb. There is no loneliness
deep as this. Longing to hold what cannot be held.
And watching it beam at you, brilliant and distant.
Poet Jude's Poetry 