The eighth season of the Hoot began with wonderful, stimulating poems by featured readers Askia Toure and Richard Cambridge, both talented poets and performers. During the open mic portion of the evening, Bill Burtis read this beautiful and intriguing love poem:
TROUBLE WITH THE MOON
I cannot tell you
if my trouble
is with the moon
or the space around it
the perfect black sky
growing indigo, slowly
filling with shatterings of light
the way your eyes
go from brown
to blue green, how
they were scattered with stars
as you looked at the moon
over my shoulder.
– Bill Burtis
The poem’s image is a Rorschach for our imagination. We wonder what the narrator’s “trouble” is that interferes with the pleasure and beauty of the moment. Perhaps, as in any new (or old) relationship, the problem is change – “the perfect black sky/ growing indigo, slowly/ filling with shatterings of light.” His loved one’s eyes, even during their embrace, change and become distracted, “scattered with stars.” Are there other appealing – or troubling – possibilities she (or he) is considering?
– Harvey Shepard hshepard@gmail.com
“Trouble with the Moon” copyright 2006 by Bill Burtis. Bill Burtis has been looking at the moon on the Seacoast for 31 years; he lives in Lee.