James Moore Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

Harvest Moon

Making Ends Meet

Everything in life has an end
Except sausage, which has two.

Sometimes I feel like a sausage
Like when camping 
Stuffed into a mummy bag
Or bundled up in bed 
Crowded by a human and dog companion
Especially if in a hot, unfamiliar place
And I wake feeling claustrophobic
Trapped in a body/mind
With nowhere else to go.

So I go outside
To gaze up into the dark sky
A full Harvest Moon above beyond
A thin wisp of clouds.
And once again am reminded of the cycles
Of everything that has an end
Or if it’s a sausage, two.
In these moments I feel balanced 
At a midpoint, always the midpoint,
Of a lifeline I call my own.

Birth and death, two points
Which in effect are the same.
Maybe sausage is the wrong metaphor
To see one’s life through
And the cause of my claustrophobia.
Maybe donut is the better image,
A bit glazed perhaps tonight, awaiting 
The frost and powder that will come soon
As the harvest season continues 
Its fall into winter.

But donut, like sausage, is too prosaic
To describe an actual life
With not only form, but substance.
So torus is perhaps a better word.
My life a sphere, divided through the center
By a central shaft, or 
Something like a circle orbiting 
Around an axis 
Simultaneously folding and unfolding
Into a circular tube
Both donut and sausage-like at once.
But with Life, so more like a space station
Spinning on its own axis
In an arc around a larger axis
Which in turn spins around other axes,
On and on in ever larger pan galactic orbits.

In all of this the idea of an axis is central
But ultimately too vast 
To grasp into a single concept, 
Let alone word.
Spinning in cycles thus I go
Both ends burning, my own
Beginning and end joined
Always balanced in this moment.

Now cold and tired, my muse’s comfort spent
Under a Harvest Moon
Softly whispering the night is young
Dreams await, of open spaces
Vast and cool in gentle breezes.
Sleep tight my child, hang loose and
Rest in peace old man
Tomorrow is another day
The moon then will not be so bright
And miles you still have to go
Before you wake.

(9/27/26)

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