Moon Poem by Philippe Beck

In the country of Constant Night
sky is a black sheet
and world a bed.
Or bed is a world.
Black sheet laid over it.
Day slumber
with linen of light.
Moon is far.
Stars are far.
Darkness rhymes with Pastness.
And black dust.
With white ornament.
The pale fire comes from there.
Apprentices change countries.
They go to the country where sun
appears and disappears.
Horizon is the shelf.
Lift brings sun
up to it.
Sun lights up the plateau.
Horizon is a plateau
where volumes go up
of ink especially.
In the land of ancient day,
night hangs from a tree.
The Solid tree.
Oak is source of light
in the dark.
Spring is a sphere in the tree.
It shines like a rounded curve.
Is Moon a silver sun
in the tree World?
It is silver-grey.
Astonishes the ‘prentices.
A white dream.
Fixed to the Oak for three ha'pennies?
Light invented
in a country of night?
There's a full jar of oil
within it?
Round Lamp is bright.
Who is Lamplighter
or Responsible for Light?
An apprentice puts a black sheet
over the moon.
They carry moon off
to the land of official night.
There's an oak-tree in the black country.
Sap is white blood.
New Light gives a new
cheeriness.
It silvers the gloomy countryside.
It bathes the bedrooms.
So there are dances in the clearings.
Moon is filled with its regular oil.
+ a weekly clean-out.
To get a silver fire.
An intense grey fire.
Each apprentice takes to his tomb
a quarter moon.
Sphere's brilliance fades bit by bit.
Ancient black returns.
Use of lanterns, too,
after the shock of night.
Night sheet is the costume of the country.
Moon is underground.
Does it light up a hell?
Cause rejoicing in the land of nothingness?
And hiding for long bodies?
Is there a light under the earth?
No.
A grey starts Intense Melancholy
in the body of oblivion.
Sun is far.
Grey has its feasts of melancholy
whose noise
reaches the sky.
Underground life is of the intense earth.
Jungle where branches cut
exhilarating strips of light.
Grey strips have a coldness
that opens the eyes.
They throw
life over it.
Bodies are upright.
Earth calm sometimes dominant.
Melancholy is extended.
Moon must hold the earth from above.
They attach it to the sky.
It lights the distant water.
Melancholy is preferred up above.
So it comes down.

after ‘The Moon'