Kingdom of the Moon

Abstract

Kingdom of the Moon Rebecca Lilly (bio) Uncle Walter, dishonorably dischargedfrom the army, built me a fort at the top ofa rambling oak—a sturdy treehouse for atwelve-year old. As if I were a banishedqueen, I'd look out with binoculars,searching for red ants in armies, andwhittle swords out of limbs within reach.Your silent enemies besiege you, Waltershouted, but you're a whipper-snapper onthe kingdom of the moon! Now in middleage, I laugh him off, but remember Walteras a little scary. I'm still nostalgic aboutthe woods where I walk, classifying herbs,plucking moss sprigs and lichen. Myfamily cemetery overlooks the wholerange of sparsely populated trees (theforest clear cut for houses) where forhours I've searched the rubble of graves,cross-examined myself obsessively, andon some days, fallen in a chasm, a thinsallow moon with bluish craters, a catchallfor my inspiration. The scenery getsabstracted and vague as if wind breathedin mist and shadows grew the darknesswhere I memorized epitaphs, to honorsovereign moments I hold in commonwith the dead. Long ago, I lost my passion for analysis,for charting out shadowlands with exactcoordinates. Now I catch voices in the [End Page 62] psalms, fluttering pulses from someextraordinarily clear summit. When themoon touches flowers I left on sunkenstones, one sparkle's enough: a floatingember of rock dust, but like a blossom'scup, spiked in panicles, both deep anddelicate. [End Page 63] Rebecca Lilly Rebecca Lilly has earned degrees from Cornell (MFA) and Princeton (PhD) Universities and works as a writer and photographer. Among her several collections of poems, her most recent is Creatures Among Us (Broadstone, 2019). An earlier collection, You Want to Sell Me a Small Antique (Gibbs Smith), won the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize, and several books of her short poetry and haiku appear from Red Moon Press. Her website is RebeccaLilly.studio. Copyright © 2022 Berea College