The Loss of the Moon It was the greatest loss of our species, the moon, and few of us ever knew how dependent we were on the great, pale sphere; but once missing, it left us distraught and without direction. New Orleans ceased to be a city, and despairing caravans of former inhabitants crawled northward as if this point of compass were more moon-like than any other. I met you in Tennessee during the blackest night of this exodus; you sat on the hood of your ancient Chevy, starring up at the dark as if a pure yearning could return the moon to us all, your black, straight hair hanging from your head like a curtain guarding a sacristy; some contrary sense told me we were going to be lovers, and your dark eyes confirmed it when you sensed me admiring you. "The only thing we can do is go on," you told me as you looked down, and it seemed clear that this has always been the best response to any great tragedy, from our species, this equal backlash by procreation. The Receiver Nun You always claimed to be small or wayward, at other times claiming you were a gnome or a boy or, mostly, a child, yet all these terms were really just parts of the poem you crafted by your very life, a thirty-odd year endeavor fashioned by your very hands, like your famous gingerbread, and this too was meant to be consumed, this reclusive endeavor, this white dress existence, so methodical . . . a poem. Who else could have been this audacious? And all the while the poems themselves pounded down, unstoppable, and God knows you tried to stop, certain years, at last realizing this life you crafted was now you, was now your real being, with the author becoming the character, no longer wayward at all, indeed the bulletins from immortality transformed the receiver nun into she who projects centuries ahead. The West Coast of Africa There in the dunes, there in the sand, your face was so close to mine your lips caused my own breath to speak your words and I pronounced myself a man of clay, an Enkidu who was nearly human and only alive under your hand. You told me this was how all us travelers fashioned our own beings, finding the proper partner to cavort with across eternity, what we know of it, the eternal being only what we can comprehend, so in this sense it is quite finite. Our memories are only a few centuries more durable than our clay bodies, you point out, then move your lips even nearer. You have me mouth the words, how did we come to recall each other? (c) Ward Kelley 2002

Ward Kelley "I'm a 51 year old business executive with 3,600 people in the division reporting to me.  I only mention this because in a sense the daimon that propels my occupation also propels my poetry.  For instance, Gertrude Stein once said, "If Mr. Robert Frost is at all good as a poet, it is because he is a farmer -- really in his mind a farmer, I mean."  So in my mind am I a businessman who writes poetry, or a very minor poet successful at business?  Who knows?  Yet I tread carefully with this balance for fear my daimon will leave me, or my greed will taunt me for decades."