How long, Selene, how long have you shed
your silver light upon the lives of men,
waxing and waning upon the waves of the sea?
Was it you who put the glint on Helen’s
eye as she made love to Paris on Aegean
shores, bare bodies bathed in bold desire?
And did you later light the Wooden Mare
the way to Priam’s Troy, silver sparks on
Daanan swords, and Hector’s body dragged
on dusty Ilium plains by grey-eyed Achilles?
Was it you, whose silver gleams sparkled
bright on fair Cleopatra’s barge, silver-glowing
on Egyptian billows, while the fairest queen
panted wildly in Marc Antony’s star-kiss’d arms?
Was it you, Selene, whose radiant light
gently glowed in Gwynnevere’s gray eye
as she moaned in lust in Lancelot’s embrace
near the rushing waves of cool-stream’d Cam?
And did you kindle sparks, like diamonds,
on Juliet’s eye as she sighed with longing
in her alabaster balcony, while Romeo ey’d her
with ecstatic sight from the moonlit orchard
down below?
Was it you who shed your silver beams
upon the Ancient Mariner’s phantom ship
as he, wild-eyed and grizzly-bearded, shot
the fair white-feather’d Albatross, and brought
the pain of ever-lasting guilt upon his soul?
How long, Selene, how long will you shed
your silver light upon the lives of men,
waxing and waning upon the melancholy
billows of our mortal lives?
© 2009 Jim Valero (All rights reserved)
A Shard of Moonlight 