The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 28

A trick of the moon.
Old man:
But the moon has truths only the moon knows
And we are swayed by them the way a tree
Is swayed by a hard and harsh wind.
Young man:
A face and the moon – what a combination
What am I to believe of you on a night like this?
You tell old stories often enough and often hint
At something you have never fully spoken.
Are your wits working against you?
Are you so shaken by the cold that visions appear
To be real to you and you see impossible things
Like a face appearing out of a hedge.
Old man:
I saw it twenty years ago
And it has never left my mind.
Perhaps some tragedy occurred here
And a soul is left waiting for a compassionate heart
To take pity on it and write it into a poem.
Or maybe I am the custodian of some truth which the moon
Casts upon the floor of the world. Perhaps to remember
And acknowledge it is what I must do. Perhaps I am
The only one who has ever seen it and so must carry
That face within me as a heart carries a secret.
Who knows but some tragic story unfolded
In this house and beauty died un-mourned.
Perhaps some jealous lover killed the one he loved
Or maybe it is himself that has half taken on her features
So that he is he and she in the one moment
And there is no escape from his condition
Until the appointed moment of forgiveness
Or the true apparition of that face.
Young man:
Now you disturb me
It’s as if you are telling a story in which you had a part.