Eric Mills, TESS 130

I could not see the moon, though it paced crossed the sky,

But I knew it was bright, and I knew it was high.

Through the holes in my walls, its light spilled to grace,

The linoleum floor, silver patterns to trace.

And I was alone, alone so complete,

I might not have been there, but for the heartbeat,

That I felt in my chest, pulsing under my skin,

And my eyes with mydriasis, should the moon topple in.

It was there I knew silence, knew the crater from which it grows,

From shadows within shadows within endless rodeos,

Round the lights in the floor, round the lights in my head,

Till it swallowed me whole as I lay in my bed.

And I knew nothing, thought nothing, there was nothing to me,

Adrift on an empty and desolate sea.

Here sinking down, I am sad to admit,

My spirit consumed, my ruin commit.

And all that was, and all that will be,

Laid bare to the shadows,

Did fade

Silently.

Yet there was something that stayed as I fell,

Something the silence could not break off or quell,

For I still felt the moon in its abyssal flight,

And I still felt the stars that fracture the night,

And I still felt the good in the world as it spins,

And I still felt the earth, and the touch of the wind,

And the laughter of children in homes down the lane,

And the warmth of the sun, and the chill of the rain,

And to this I could hold, and for this I was born,

Cast out of nothing to weather the storm,

Of the life of the birds and the bees that will buzz,

Yes, I felt alone,

but I knew who I was.

So the shadows did scatter as the moon rose on higher,

And the silence diminished into nights’ insect choir,

And I remembered the faces of the people I love,

Falling asleep, as the stars passed above.

Check out Eric’s most recent Sticky Rice Article here.