DOUGLAS PENICK
THREE MOONS
1) Full Moon
The bright moon glows,
Radiant amid the tracery of empty branches
Like a silver mirror
Reflecting nothing.
Drawn from their dark den,
Fox cubs open their sparkling eyes,
Extend their clever paws
Onto the edge
Of the human realm
Seeing Genji’s moon
Sparkling in the parting lover’s tear,
Seeing Li Po’s moon
Bring song into a wine cup,
Seeing the spy’s moon
Showing the way to the enemy.
People think that this moon
Reflects the light of a hidden sun.
Why could its light
So cool and still
Not be its own?
2) Servant's Moon
The faint scent of skin and sex
Fades in the dark amid the golden leaves
About to fall.
The servant’s moon,
A moon not full
Yet offering the light of fullness,
Floods the silent sky
And reveals a long luminous cloud bank,
A new snow-mountain range
Rising on the horizon’s edge
As another world
Briefly touches here.
3) The Love Of Earth And Moon
Ceaselessly
Gazing one on the other
While their children sleep,
Pearl bright moon and shadowed earth
Embrace in night’s deep tidal ebb and flow:
Opening each to the other’s subtle influence
In the wordless gravity of love.
Constant,
Constant and continuing,
A silent unending caress, invisible by day.
Douglas Penick graduated from Princeton University and was a research associate at the Museum Of Modern Art, New York. He has studied and practised Tibetan Buddhism for more than 30 years, and has written and taught on Asian culture. Douglas wrote the Canadian NFB’s series on The Tibetan Book of the Dead (narrated by Leonard Cohen) and libretti for two operas: King Gesar (Sony CD featuring Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Peter Lieberson and Emanuel Ax) and Ashoka’s Dream (Santa Fe Opera) with Peter Lieberson. He has written commissions for the NY Philharmonic and other orchestras to music by Philip Glass etc. This year Publerati released his novel, Journey of the North Star.
