Honey Moon
When you moved through the cold
a fierce essential flame
I warmed myself at your altar.
Night
ate the afterbirth of day.
Birdsong wrestled with silence.
You covered me in stolen light –
this new and secret skin.
“Honey Moon” was originally published in the New Zealand Listener on 18 March 2006, and is one of the poems I plan to include in my forthcoming collection Men Briefly Explained.
See the Tuesday Poem blog for lots more Tuesday Poems!
Wow.
A very beautiful poem Tim. Every word carries its own weight splendidly. It's perfect.
Nice – looking forward to the book!
Thank you all! I'm looking forward to being able to close the gap between 'forthcoming' and 'published' when it comes to that collection.
Tim, lovely love poem. The reader breathes each word (at least I did) as if the poem might go awry somehow,and yet each quiet footfall is the right one. Very nice.
Thank you, Vespersparrow! In the case of this poem, I set out to write out a completely different poem, fiddled around with it for a while, and these eight lines suddenly popped out. I discarded all the other lines and kept these.I endeavoured to post a comment on your poem, and its wonderful vocabulary, but the gremlins of the Internet appear to have eaten my comment.(For anyone who hasn't seen it, this is Vespersparrow's Tuesday Poem.)