Holding
I turn to the moon and I bathe
in its light and I reach out
to pick up its dust and instead
I hold color, that off-white,
warm-white white, and it goes
into my hand, my fingers,
like the softest glittering schist
and I feel its color
palely shining through me, to me
with me, in me.
Just so, I turn to people,
touching their lives as I
would the light of moon dust,
holding them sacred,
feeling their light, that off-white,
warm-white white, fill me,
suffuse me, spill over and out,
and all of us holding as much
of God as we can,
each of us embodying
whatever phase of the moon
our gross bodies can sustain–
we glow, both soaking up
and reflecting, frail bodies
luminous in this pale life.
Eabhan Ni Shuileabhain
Eabhan Ní Shuileabháin lives in Wales although she was born and raised in Ireland to an American father and Irish mother. She writes poetry and creative non-fiction and works as a lecturer in a local further education college, teaching creative writing, literacy and meditation/mindfulness techniques.