Fishing With a Straight Hook Moon

Fishing With a Straight Hook Moon

Full Moon   March 14, 2025

O, the fear in the colonizer’s heart!

O, the sleepless dread of matter & matriarchy

non-duality & the queer fertility of late winter!

O, the anxiety of relationship,

where naked trembling excitation

is only the beginning of bliss!

O, the hated mirrors & maps & music

that put us properly in perspective!

O, let us welcome a humbling

which yields us all more freedom:

to love & beloved alike,

yearning for true connection!

The sun of compassion

this most basic illumination

easy to overlook & play down

but O! the warmth & joy

of resonance with one’s beloveds—

the grace of putting aside defenses

& resting in the amiable raucous

conviviality of friendly animals!

There is nothing better for the soul

than to lay about as a free being

in sunlight together.

Being for life

involves humility

& an eye for beauty.

Being for life

means attending to

both birth & death.

Being for life requires

a sense of humor, a love

of music—irreverence &

reverence, both.

Being for life respects

our relationships &

acknowledges limits.

Being for life invites the stranger

to eat with you, speak & weep,

dream & teach you.

Being for life

is enlivening.

These fast-warming days

one on another.

Demonstrations of solidarity,

gestures of freedom & care,

acts of restraint & extension.

One sock on & then the other.

One panel, one stitch

one breath, one movement

toward freedom inspires

the next exhalation

the deepening ease & relaxation.

The spring crack of ice,

the old armor of childhood

replaced by art, by prayer,

by devotion to I & Thou.

Winter is the beginning of spring

& summer is the end of spring.

Walking the city with signs

chanting Kanzeon Namu Butsu

& meeting  Mark who lives nearby

recording the owls I hear

at night from bed.

Nam June Paik to Fluxus

to the Janes: Hirshfield & McAlevey

Mayumi Oda & now

Edith Stein & Simone Weil

via Timothy Snyder…

and the yellows of acacia

& first violet in blueish hue.

The sounds of wind!

What would we do

if asked—or told—to deny

the truth of our senses?

That the world is whole

& beautiful is evident.

I would want to check with you.

To inquire of your life

& experience & ask:

What do you make of this?

O, to loaf on the land &

ask such peaceful questions

& listen to life as shadows

grow on the mountain

& the moon begins to rise.

All life begins

within the mother.

Held by the mother,

fed by the mother,

born of the mother,

nurtured by the mother.

Mother is the center

of the universe, the great

holding force that shapes

every part of us.

We emerge from mother

into great mother

& will return

to mother again.

Mother is the heart

of all life.

Awareness of time

& place & company.

Appreciation of the finite

& the ongoing suchness

of each spectacular element.

It is spring training of the heart.

Warming up on chilly mornings,

putting on the old uniform & smile.

Out under the sky

& onto the green expanse.

Water laps the shore.

With the trouble that is close.

All this evidence of love

manifest in the breath.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall. Facing a Jewel Mirror, 2018. Ink on Yupo. Diptych, 10×17″. In a private collection.