The Moon in Your Hands

—-Hilda Doolittle

 

If you take the moon in your hands

and turn it around

(heave, slightly tarnished platter)

you’re there;

 

if you pull dry sea-weed from the sand

and turn it round

and wonder at the underside’s bright amber,

your eyes

 

look out as they did here,

(you don’t remember)

when my soul turned round,

 

perceiving the other-side of everything,

mullein-lief, dogwood-leaf, moth-wing

and dandelion-seed under the ground.