Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Another Full Moon

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Betty Twitchell of Turner, who selected today?s favorite poem from a past column, writes this about her choice: ?From the imagined lamp light in the next room to the almost reluctant acceptance found in her last lines, Kate Barnes has not only captured my own experience with the deepest of Maine winters, but may also have illuminated the reasons I have little desire to live elsewhere.?

Another Full Moon by Kate Barnes

The house, lit by moonlight
on the snow, glows inside
like a huge jewel, a moonstone
or opal.
            The whole house
shimmers with its freight
of living souls, and the souls
of disembodied memory.
                                               I lie
inside my warm bed in the cold
brightness, dreaming of those
who can no longer dream
of anyone, who have become
motes of dust
in the air, those universal
dreamers.
                 You would imagine,
looking into the next room,
that a lamp was lit,
but I know it is only
the light of the moon
westering, nearly full,
over the snow.
                       I am not wanting
or asking anything
impossible; it?s just
that I can?t help
thinking about it.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1994 Kate Barnes. Reprinted from Where the Deer Were, David R. Godine, 1994, by permission of the Estate of Catherine B. Barnes. Please note that the column is no longer accepting submissions; comments about it may be directed to special consultant to the poet laureate, Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: More Poems from Maine, a brand new anthology collecting the final two and a half years of this column, will be available in early January from Down East Books.