Zodiac

The Crab

The Crab

•

I would see my desire in the flames.

Strong and passionate and brave. Powerful.

And I so wished I could walk in the day,

And witness the incandescent light,

And feel the earth warm beneath my feet.

•

I was never welcome in the brightness.

The sun could be so cruel to me.

Burning and blinding. Unyielding.

I used to fear the morning when he would

Crush my gentleness under his vibrance.

When he would send me to the night in tears.

•

But that was eons ago.

I grew older, and I began to know my place.

•

I am a moon-child.

The tender reflection of the sun.

His softer side.

His compliment.

•

I feel foolish now when I look back

To my petulant longing to walk by his side.

Why be a slave to the sun

When I am the most beloved of the moon?

•

Oh, she sings such sweet poetry to me.

She strokes my silver crown and hums softly in my ear -

"I pray that you'll be as untroubled as

You were when you were little.

When you were naked in the night and sleeping in the hollow."

•

I learned from the moon that I do not need to be

Intense or bright or hot or beautiful or known

To fulfill my own life.

•

I wouldn't disturb the unbroken surface

Of the inky nighttime lake,

That subdues my waves and reflects my quiet.

Not for anything.

And even if I stray now and then,

I know I will always be welcomed home.

•

I need only breathe for a while,

To walk in the unmoving silence and say to it -

Oh. I remember you.

You were there that time I rested with the moon and her starlit children.