Apr 06, 2007 09:49
Tonight, Everyone Is In Love
Tonight, everyone is in love.
Gaze at the face
of the spilling moon
and tell me this is not so.
Tonight,
a child is in love with an arm,
a boy is in love with a car,
a woman's in love with a photo
of a man, of course, in love.
Old stories, true, but
tonight, wet with the fiery moon,
again we can love them.
One hundred striped spiders
are in love
with places in my house
I am afraid to go.
Tonight, a bride
is in love with a groom, a groom
is in love with a bride, a guest
is in love with
the groom's pierced
ear, which is all she knows of him,
and with the way his black jacket moves
to show he is crying.
The cake on the table is
in love
with the knife my mother uses
to bless it.
Tonight, everyone is in love.
Look at the night’s blazing buckle of moon
and try telling
the desperate stars otherwise.
A girl is in love with a book tonight,
and the book is in love
with the swans’ necks of her sweet fingers
along its cracked spine.
Even the ram, its head inclined,
is in love with the thicket
where he waits in
white moonlight burning
for Abraham,
whom he loves.
Tonight, under the spilling moon,
I confess to you:
everyone is in love.
~Jan Bottiglieri
***
This morning, the iPod coughed up "There Is a Boy That Never Goes Out" and then "The Whole of the Moon," and I may have, um, gotten a little sniffly over Remus and Sirius. Just. Things end so badly for them! Every time! And those two songs are inextricably linked to them for me, both of them from Remus's POV, and so wistful and heartbreaking and oh, I just know that I'm going to have to be really angry about the stupidity of the veil or I will just end up sobbing my heart out over the movie of OotP.
I am very annoyed with the blurb in EW that blames his own reckless behavior for his death. This is not an argument I ever want to have again. I mean, Sirius goes to the aid of his godson, the boy he's sworn to protect and failed (failed egregiously in his own mind, I'm sure), and that's reckless and wrong? I just can't even... How was he supposed to stay away? Of course, if he had, he'd still be alive for people to rag on him for being cowardly or a lousy godfather for not going to help rescue Harry. If he hadn't gone, he wouldn't have been who he was, and in fiction, personality is quite often destiny.
*deep breath*
Anyway, "The Whole of the Moon" is very much about the differences between Remus and Sirius, you know?
I saw flashes, but you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
but you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
But you saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon
You were there in the turnstiles
With the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon
[...]
I spoke about wings
But you just flew
I wondered, I guessed, and I tried
But you just knew
I sighed
But you swooned
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
*sigh*
Maybe when I get to the parents' later, I'll upload, in case any of you don't know the glory that is "The Whole of the Moon" by the Waterboys.
***
national poetry month 2007,
sirius/remus:meta