Millicent Borges Accardi - July 24, 2011

After a lovely, lively, and whimsical reading by Alice Pero (assisted in one section by a fellow poet and editor of her delightful book, Thawed Stars, Russell Salamon), we were getting ready to hear Georgia Jones-Davis in July and Millicent Borges Accardi in August. We already sent Georgia's biography to The Voice of the Village when it turned out that she has to postpone her appearance by a month. Thus we will enjoy the presence of Millicent a month earlier, on July 24, at 4:30 p.m. As all Village Poets Readings, this one will take place on a Sunday afternoon, in the enchanting interior of the Bolton Hall Museum, at 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. The reading will include open mike sections before and after the feature (accomodating up to 18 poets) and light refreshments will be served, courtesy of the Bolton Hall Museum staff.

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American poet, is the author of three books: Injuring Eternity (World Nouveau), Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press chapbook), and Only More So (forthcoming Salmon Press, Ireland 2012). The beautiful covers of her books are reproductions of paintings by her husband, Charles Accardi (his website is: charlesaccardi.com)

She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts (NEA), the California Arts Council, Barbara Deming Foundation, Canto Mundo, and Formby at the Special Collections Library at Texas Tech (researching writer-activist Kay Boyle). Her work has also received three Pushcart Prize nominations.

Accardi’s poetry has appeared in over 50 publications, including Nimrod, Tampa Review, New Letters and Wallace Stevens Journal as well as in Boomer Girls (Iowa Press) and Chopin with Cherries (Moonrise Press) anthologies.

Her theater and book reviews can be found in print and online at The Topanga Messenger. Past artist residencies include Yaddo, Jentel, Vermont Studio, Fundación Valparaíso in Mojacar, Milkwood in Cesky Krumlov and Disquiet in Lisbon, Portugal.

She received degrees in English and writing from Califortnia State University Long Beach and holds a Masters in Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California. She works as a freelance writer (theater reviews, grant writing and instructional design); this type of work leaves her with time to create and travel to poetry residences around the world. More information may be found on her website: Millicent Borges Accardi.

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About Injuring Eternity :

Millicent has an amazingly intimate way of writing that makes you feel as though you are going through the pages of her life alongside her.
~ Gabe Sachs, Writer/Producer 90210

In Injuring Eternity Millicent Borges Accardi gives the reader a day’s worth of character poems in three parts, morning, noon, and evening. These sketches are fun to pick up and read one or two at a time and think about. Sitting down and reading them all at once can seem a little too much, but perhaps that’s the introvert in me. The collection is of mostly free form poems, well shaped and with excellent use of interesting and specific details, with the title coming from a quote from Henry Thoreau “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity”. The overall poem though, goes beyond the person, into capturing a statement about relationships and life... Many will find something of value just by randomly opening pages and selecting something new: births, deaths, lovers, children, snooping, guns, the down side of Las Vegas, soap operas and birthdays.
~ The Compulsive Reader by Sheri Harper

The work addresses family, love, politics, art, and religion. It tackles current events, popular culture, and spares a few asides for Miles Davis. It's an ambitious collection that takes a lot of risks.
~ from a review published in Chamber Four

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Mourning Doves

Have such soulful
Eyes, their gray suit
Of feathers blurs and sinks
Them into the background
Like a creature in hiding.
They hover below the wild
Bird feeder set up for the finches
And harvest the shells, the thistle
Seed casings and what drops after
The finches and faux robins and phoebes
Have feasted. The mourning
Doves huddle and nest in the mountains
Of seed shells and dirt and make circles
With their small bird bodies turning
Into the ground digging a place around
Them as if they were under a shrub with only
The black drops of ink from their tail feathers
Visible. In a group, they lie in wait, their dear gray
Eyes gloomy and sullen and innocent and they want
What the world desires, to be fed and comfortable
And consummated and happy.

Alice Pero - Featured Poet on June 26, 2011

The next monthly Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall Museum, Tujunga, on June 26, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. will feature our wonderful neighbor, poet and musician, Alice Pero. A co-founder and host of Moonday Poetry readings at Pacific Palisades, she recently started Moonday East in nearby La Canada Flintridge, but she is our neighbor in Sunland.

Alice Pero was born in New York City, the child of an electrical engineer and a housewife/editor. She graduated from Putney School in Vermont and The Manhattan School of Music in New York City. She received dance training at the Martha Graham School in New York and from many private teachers and studied flute with Harold Bennett. While a student she played with the National Orchestral Association in New York City and currently she is playing chamber music concerts, after a long hiatus from the flute. She is a member of the California Poets in the Schools, and was a workshop leader for the New York City Ballet Education Department Poetry Project for many years. Pero is also a teacher of poetry to grade school children and she has developed a unique curriculum that utilizes her experience with music. In October 2002, Pero founded a poetry reading, Moonday, at Village Books in Pacific Palisades, California, which she co-produces with Lois P. Jones. She recently inaugurated the Moonday East series at the newly constructed Flintridge Bookstore in La Cañada, while continuing the popular Pacific Palisades readings.

Pero discovered poetry after studying rhythm with the music educator, Jamie Faunt, and has been writing poetry seriously for 29 years. She has done many featured readings in New York and Los Angeles and has been published in over 60 small magazines and anthologies, including: North American Review, 13th Moon, The Alembic, North Dakota Quarterly, RiverSedge, New Delta Review, The Distillery, Lullwater Review, Poet Lore, River Oak Review, The Cape Rock, Fox Cry Review, The Griffin, G.W. Review, Main Street Rag, Quercus Review, Oregon East, The Pikeville Review, Xavier Review, Studio One, Three Mile Harbor, Salonika, San Gabriel Valley Quarterly, Soundings East, Spillway, Sulphur River Literary Review, Minnetonka Review, Word Thursday, Très diverse-city, Valley Contemporary Poetry Anthology, Albatross, Lummox, Bayou, Carquinez Poetry Review, Cadillac Cicatrix, California Quarterly, Cairn, The Old Red Kimono, and Sanskrit.

Her first book of poetry, Thawed Stars, published in 1999, was hailed by Kenneth Koch as having “clarity and surprises.”

Lyn Lifshin has said: "Alice Pero's poems are deliciously open, brimming with leaps, twists and surprises, often joyful and fizzy as a fireworks display." The book is available on Amazon.com:
Thawed Stars.

“The romance of discovery, the radiant brilliance, the surprise and laughter are all here in Alice Pero's deeply intelligent insights into the edge of things." ~The Book Reader~
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RUMORS

They say that soon
the sun will be swept
into the sea
The moon will visit me
and tell me
how to rescue the sun

but I know these are only rumors

The sea keeps secrets in violent waves
and leaves me wondering

The sun burns alone
in scorching silence

but only I live to dream
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from Thawed Stars

© 2011 Alice Pero

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The monthly Village Poets readings at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga have been blessed with a number of impressive guest poets and regular visitors reading their work at the Open Mike segments. We are looking forward to hearing Alice's poetry next month.

Cindy Rinne's recent reading at Bolton Hall (May 22) was a popular success, not only because of the beauty and inspiration of her poetry, with a deeply personal, reflective tone, focusing on the beauty of nature. Cindy brought and shared with us a set of wonderful fiber art pieces, that she designed and made from pieces of fabric, embroidery, inscriptions of poems, etc. I particularly loved the beautiful blue piece with small houses on it, and the story about her house that burned down. We live in the wildfire zone, close to the mountains that are as beautiful as they are dangerous...

At the end of Cindy's "Earth Voices" presentation of her poetry and fiber art, the audience "dressed up" in her artwork and posed together. She wrote about this experience on her blog: FiberVerse. I took a couple of photos; here's a group shot of all poets holding Cindy's fiber artwork. Thank you, Cindy!



L to R: Jim Gibson, Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt, Lloyd Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, xx, Lois P. Jones, Russell Salamon, Beverly Collins, Marcia Behar, Mari Werner, Deborah Marlow, and (seated) Maja Trochimczyk, xx, Barbara Brolin, Cindy Rinne and Mira Mataric.

"Earth Voices" by Cindy Rinne - May 22, 2011

Our next Featured Poet, on May 22, 2011, at 4:30 p.m., will be Cindy Rinne, a fiber artist and poet. An open mike reading will precede and follow the featured poet. The reading will take place, as always, at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga.

Cindy Rinne grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. She has lived in San Bernardino over 25 years. Cindy is a fiber artist who enjoys stitching together stories. She has exhibited her artwork internationally. Cindy is a poet. She coordinates mixed-media poetry events, is featured in solo poetry events, lectures and teaches visual poetry workshops.

Cindy has a poem in the chapbook for the Art VULUPS Project of Riverside County and gave a lecture at Cal State University San Bernardino about her Collaborations of Art and the Spoken Word. She has been published several Poets on Site Chapbooks including one about her art work. Cindy's poetry appeared in Phantom Seed and the Solstice Literary Magazine of the College of the Desert. She also took part in a part of the Award-winning Poetry Audio Tour of the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena. Cindy has given solo presentations of her poetry and art in Chinatown (LA), Pasadena, La Canada Flintridge, and Claremont.

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Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga will present the poetry of Millicent Borges Accardi in June and of Alice Pero in September. Other notices will be posted in the future.

John Z. Guzlowski at Bolton Hall on April 17, 2011

JOHN GUZLOWSKI is the author of Lightning and Ashes, a book of poems about his parents’ experiences in Nazi concentration camps; a portion of which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His stories and poems appear in such national journals as Ontario Review, Chattahoochee Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, and Marge, and in the anthology Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust. Garrison Keillor read Guzlowski’s poem “What My Father Believed” on his program, The Writers’ Almanac. Czeslaw Milosz said that Guzlowski’s poems about his parents are “astonishing.” He blogs about his parents at http://lightning-and-ashes.blogspot.com/

Asked about a personal statement about his poetry, John sent the following:

"I was born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, and came with my parents Jan and Tekla and my sister Donna to the United States as Displaced Persons in 1951. My Polish Catholic parents had been slave laborers in Nazi Germany. Growing up in the immigrant and DP neighborhoods around Humboldt Park in Chicago, I met Jewish hardware store clerks with Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish cavalry officers who still mourned for their dead horses, and women who walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians. My poems try to remember them and their voices."

Here's what Czeslaw Milosz had to say about Guzlowski's book:

"In [Guzlowski’s] poems the land of his parents and the work camps are always present, although at the same time they are only part of his poetic repertoire. In the volume which I have at hand, there are a lot of completely different poems, completely free of the burden of the past. This slim volume even astonished me with its doubleness. The first part summons precisely the camp images from the life of the author’s parents, who were treated by the Nazis like beasts of burden. Their awkward language, because they were both half-literate, was for the Nazis a language of mules. The second part reveals an enormous ability for grasping reality with some distance." — Czesław Miłosz

An American poet, Lola Haskins, responded to a different aspect of this poignant book:

"Lightning and Ashes chronicles the terrible things that happened to the poet’s parents in the death camps of WW II. Of course, the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews (and others) have not gone unnoticed in our literature, but Guzlowski should join the annals of the great recording angels, not just for his unsparing yet compassionate language but also because he makes clear what is so easy to forget: that no matter how many years pass, such events never do. That what happened in the camps is like his father’s eye, fixed forever open. In Lightning and Ashes, which might as well have been titled Remembrance, Guzlowski shows us how his family might have lived had the war not happened, then describes unforgettably how they did." —Lola Haskins

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John is visiting Southern California as a guest of the Modjeska Art and Culture Club which is sponsoring an event dedicated to the poetry of Nobel-Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz. Called "Milosz in my Life" and held on April 16, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ruskin Art Club (800 S. Plymouth Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90005), this evening of poetry will juxtapose John's work and presence with that of Cecilia Woloch, and actor Marek Probosz. See the Modjeska Club blog for more information.

The Bolton Hall Museum Open Poetry Reading is organized by Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga. More details about the featured poets and dates of readings may be found on the margin of this blog.

March 27 with the Spiritual Quartet - Lois, Susan, Taoli-Ambika, & Maja

The Spiritual Quartet consisting of four female poets - Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Maja Trochimczyk - will be featured at the next Village Poets Reading, scheduled for March 27, at 4:30 p.m., at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. Each poet comes from a different spiritual background, while sharing the focus on compassion, beauty, enlightenment, and a creative expression of positive energy. They weave their poems around themes of light, love, forgiveness, hope, and friendship. They contemplate nature, mountains, birds and gardens, and draw inspiration from the poetry of Rumi, Rilke, and their own spiritual traditions.

LOIS P. JONES’s poetry and photographs have been or will soon be published in American Poetry Journal, Raven Chronicles, Qarrtsiluni, Rose & Thorn, Tiferet, Kyoto Journal, and other print and on-line journals in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-founder of Word Walker Press and a documentarist of Argentina’s wine industry. You can hear her as host on 90.7 KPFK’s Poet’s Cafe (Pacifica Radio) on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 8:30 p.m. and see her as co-host of Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in La Canada, California. She is the Associate Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal and a 2009 and 2010 Pushcart Nominee. In August 2010 her poem “Ouija” was selected as Poem of the Year by judge Dana Goodyear.


"Show what the light gave her

washing warmth into a neck
until it’s dune, a cliffside

that holds a head of surf.
Paint as you would before you awaken,

when sunlight falls like milkweed
and you are an empty silo

letting her grain fill you–
buttery malt and biscuit

for the love of honey."

(From "Ways to Paint a Woman" by Lois P. Jones)

SUSAN ROGERS considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari— a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. She is also a photographer and a licensed attorney. Her poems were part of the 2010 Valentine Peace Project and have been performed at museums and galleries in Southern California. Her work can be found in the book Chopin and Cherries, numerous journals, anthologies and chapbooks Her work can be heard online or in person as part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. She was recently interviewed by Lois P. Jones for KPFK’s Poets Café.


"The dove knows the way
follow her.

Your heart knows the way
listen well.

Within your deepest self
are wings of light.

They cover the earth
with waves of love.

Do you remember?
You once knew.

Stand in the warmth
of sunlight and recall.

The origin of the world
is one."

From The Origin is One, a poem dedicated to Kotama Okada and inspired by a painting by Susan Dobay.


Long-time educator, published author, artist, TAOLI-AMBIKA TALWAR has been involved in holistic arts/sciences for many years. Her mission is to be a reflective, gentle and creative change agent. Her film, “Androgyne” won the best script award at a festival in Belgium. She has published two books, Creative Resonance: Poetry¬Elegant Play, Elegant Change (2006) and 4 Stars & 25 Roses (2007) and has two chapbooks from Laguna Press, Words for Hungry Tongues (2000) Songs of the Body. Kyoto Journal published her poem titled, “What the Trees Say” for their biodiversity issue. Taoli-Ambika has also been published in the anthology, Chopin with Cherries, Inkwater Ink, vol. 3 and other collections. Her photographs and paintings have appeared in Tiferet Journal. She teaches English at Cypress College, Cypress. “Because poetry is the bridge to new worlds.”

Where Flowers Wander

cells love it
when we smile
even if worlds break

nothing matters
but the great empty
from which all comes

chalice is passages
for the flow
of the fountain

always traveler
longs for the great empty
flowers grow there

© 2011 Taoli-Ambika Talwar

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, is also a music historian and non-profit director born in Poland, educated in Poland and Canada and residing in Sunland. As an author of four scholarly books and hundreds of articles, she is well established in the music history world, with two main specializations: Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and 20th-century contemporary music. She founded Moonrise Press and published three books of poetry: Rose Always, Miriam's Iris and the Chopin with Cherries anthology. Her poetry and photography appears in such journals as the Epiphany Magazine, Loch Raven Review, The Huston Literary Review, Ekphrasis Journal, Phantom Seed, PoeticDiversity and many anthologies by Poets on Site and others. See: www.trochimczyk.net, poetrylaurels.blogspot.com.

Consolation

you too will find the way into the orchard
where green fruit ripens among late blossoms
I found the path, I'm waiting there already

the birds chirp and frolic among the branches
they fly - cheerful in the orange sun

you too -
the path is not too narrow
the gate too distant

will find -
the most amazing jewel
of deep peace

the way -
will open soon
you will see

into the orchard
of love's riches
you will come

(c) 2008 by Maja Trochimczyk

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In the photos 1) Maja and Lois, 2) Maja and Susan, 3) Maja and Taoli-Ambika, 4) Taoli-Ambika, Susan, Lois and Maja.

Apple blossoms photo (c) by Maja Trochimczyk.

Poetry fragments (C) by the poets, used by permission.

Poetry of Mari Werner and a Birthday

On February 27, 2011, when the eyes of the world were turned to the parade of sparkly designer dresses on the red carpet of the Oscars, poets gathered at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga to hear Mari Werner and to share their work. In fact, so many poets gathered, that the time allotted to one reader shrunk over the course of the afternoon from three poems and/or five minutes, whichever is shorter, to two poems and or three minutes, to one poem and one minute. The job of the MC, Maja Trochimczyk, was certainly challenging.

Our featured poet, the wonderful and witty Mari Werner, "makes her living" - as she says - "as a writer of technical materials, but lately makes her life as a writer of poetry and humor. She grew up in Santa Barbara, California, came to the Los Angeles area in the mid-70s, and now lives in Altadena. her work has been published in a number of local publications including the Los Angeles Daily News, The Latest, and the Valley Star."

Mari Werner amused, educated, and inspired her audience with the following poems and prose pieces: Fire and Friendship, Confessions of a Tree Hugger, For My Father, Warmth, Two Eyes Looking, Scarcity, Miranda for Civilization, Keep on Singing, Night Falling, Fighting, Napping, Squirrel haiku, Moorpark Park, Cops and Seat Belts, Finding the Holy Grail, Penguin Power, and Consciousness.

We previously quoted here Mari's lyrical piece about the Crescent Moon. Here are two humorous poems:

Squirrel haiku

Squirrels foraging
Just two operating speeds
Overdrive and stop

Moorpark Park

On the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard
and Moorpark Street is a park
called Moorpark Park.
It doesn't have a parking lot.
but if it did, it would be called
Moorpark Park Parking Lot.

Before and after Mari's poetry, we heard a variety of poetic voices, from local poets and guests, some of whom came from very far away. Sharon Chmielarz from Minneapolis, visiting California on a tour of readings, definitely was the one to get the "long distance" prize. We arranged her visit having been forewarned of her arrival. She is one of the poets published in the anthology "Chopin with Cherries" (edited by Maja Trochimczyk). Sharon read "Burning" from her new book Calling. See her website, www.sharonchmielarz.com for more information. Her friend, Mary Kay Rummel of Ventura read a poem named after and based on one of Stephen Linsteadt's paintings: "Feminine Restitution."

We also had guests from Ventura, Santa Barbara, Monrovia, Pasadena, and Palm Springs. Kathabela Wilson, the leader of Poets on Site, sketched them in her notebook! She also organized a wonderful birthday celebration of a Palm Springs painter and poet, Stephen Lindsteadt, by asking "open mike" poets to read their work they contributed to her upcoming anthology of ekphrastic poetry dedicated to and inspired by his paintings.

The book, called Art and Alchemy, will be published by Poets on Site and available through online bookstores. Poets Mira Mataric, Kathabela Wilson, Maria Elena Boekemeyer (Stephen's wife and editor of the "Badlands" journal), and Maja Trochimczyk read their work, inspired by different pieces from the Lindsteadt collection. Rick Wilson accompanied some poets on a flute, creating a wonderful mood... For images of Stephen's paintings visit his website: www.stephenlinsteadtstudio.com.

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The next feature at the Village Poets reading, scheduled for March 27, at 4:30 p.m., will be the Spiritual Quartet, consisting of Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Maja Trochimczyk.

The Spiritual Quartet, formed in May 2010, consists of four women representing different spiritual traditions, while sharing the focus on positive values of compassion, inspiration, hope, illumination, creativity, and love. More information about the reading and the readers will follow!

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On April 17, at 4:30 p.m., Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga will present the work of Dr. John Z. Guzlowski, visiting California as a guest of the Modjeska Art and Culture Club, in honor of the "Milosz Year" - celebrating the anniversary of Polish Nobel-Prize winning poet, Czeslaw Milosz, who spent half of his life in Berkeley, California. Dr. Guzlowski's blog about his parents' ordeal in Buchenwald is published as: http://lightning-and-ashes.blogspot.com/. He also maintains a "clearing house" for all matters pertaining to Polish American writing, at: http://writingpolishdiaspora.blogspot.com

One of the "open mike" readers from our February event, Mina Kirby will soon appear at Boston Court Theater in Pasadena, featuring in Pasadena ARTTalk. On Saturday, March 12 at 1 p.m., she will present some of her poetry and songs. For more information see: http://www.playhousedistrict.org/arttalk/

Another "open mike" reader, Mira Mataric, previously featured at Village Poets (in November 2010), will co-feature with Taoli-Ambika Talwar at Moonday Poetry in Pacific Palisades. The Moonday series is held at Village Books of Pacific Palisades, www.moondaypoetry.com. Mira and Taoli-Ambika will appear on March 14, 2011, at 7:30 p.m.

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In the top picture (L to R): Dorothy Skiles, Rick Dutton, Pauli Dutton, Joe DeCenzo, Rick Wilson, Kathabela Wilson, Mira Mataric, Sharon Chmielarz, Cindy Rinne, Mari Werner, Maria Elena Boekemeyer, Stephen Linsteadt, and Maja Trochimczyk.

In the middle picture (L to R): Rick Dutton, Pauli Dutton, Kathabela and Rick Wilson, Cindy Rinne, Maria Elena Boekemeyer, Stephen Linsteadt, and seated Mira Mataric, Mari Werner, and Maja Trochimczyk.

The sketch from Kathabela's notebook includes faces of open mike readers surrounding Mari Werner wearing a halo!

In the fourth picture (L to R): Taoli-Ambika Talwar, Susan Rogers, Lois P. Jones, and Maja Trochimczyk.

Mari Werner at Bolton Hall on 2/27/2011

On Sunday, February 27, at 4:30 p.m. Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga will present their next monthly Open Reading with Featured Poet Mari Werner.

The Reading will include time for Open Mike Poets and Musicians. Refreshments will be served and donations collected for the upkeep of Bolton Hall Museum.

Bolton Hall Museum, one of the earliest Historical Landmarks of the City of Los Angeles, is located at 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91342. Ample street parking is available and if you come early enough you may park in the Museum's parking lot.


MARI WERNER grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She now lives in Altadena, and makes her living as an independent technical writer. Her columns and articles have been published in a number of local and national publications including the Los Angeles Daily News, Freedom Magazine, and The Latest. Between projects, she’s working on a book that uses humor to make the basics and truths of economics accessible to ordinary people.


Poetry and humor are Mari’s true writing loves, and she’s been writing poetry off and on since childhood. She’s been a regular at the Village Poets open readings since she started attending last May. Though she loves nature, she finds most of her poetic inspiration in human life. Her plain-spoken poetry is often laced with a touch of humor or sarcasm, but beneath it is a hope for human kind and the creative energy in us all.


Crescent Moon

A crescent moon floats above the horizon.
“You can totally see the rest of it,”
she says, as though the moon is cheating.

And the moon is cheating.
A crescent moon should be
what a crescent moon looks like
in a bedtime story illustration,
a crescent clear and simple,
no dark sphere to detract
from its perfection.

Under the smile of the crescent moon,
she sleeps in fluffy comforters,
winked upon by stars
cuddled by a curled up cat,
guarded by a sleeping dog.

That’s the bedtime story version,
but here on the surface of the planet…
you can totally see the rest of it.