The Moon is Almost Full

Chana Bloch

• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781938769207
• eBook ISBN: 9781637680148
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Chana Bloch's newest poetry collection, The Moon is Almost Full, focuses frankly and tenderly on the themes of aging and death. Bloch doesn't shy away from the dark places, but she was a trustworthy guide. These remarkable poems remind the reader to take joy where we can find it and relish the everyday. Bloch's clear and direct voice makes her poems accessible favorites for all readers. Anyone interested in poetry dealing with aging, cancer, family relationships, and Judaism.

I

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing.

—George Herbert,
“The Flower”

Three Wishes

The first is always foolish, the second

a foolish attempt to undo it.

But it was you

who made those wishes, you

with your regrettable failure

to see around corners.

What are you saving the third wish for?

You’ve lived on roots, slept on straw,

looked down a well so deep

you couldn’t see bottom.

The horizon is just beginning

to tighten its wire

around you—

That’s no cloth of gold,

just the setting sun

gilding the windows.

Bucket List

We got ourselves all the way to Corfu

to see “the most beautiful sunset in Europe.”

There we sat and waited, shivering under winter skies.

A silver line on the horizon.

After a while, another. “Travel narrows the mind,”

one of us joked. I forget which of us laughed.

Cross off China. Cross off the steamy rain forest

in Costa Rica, the three-museum days that almost

did us in. This evening, in my regal wine-dark robe,

I receive the sunset at my kitchen window.

Forget the future. The past is a continent

barely mapped, and deep enough,

down to the earth’s hot core.

Taking the Waters

Nobody here looks good

in a bathing suit.

Every body has a story,

ladies with epic thighs

and creaky joints,

gents with wobbly knees,

the halt and the lame

strapping weights at the ankle,

weights at the waist.

The bodies take to the water

where every hurt is healed

in the blessèd Eau de chlorine.

Arms and legs slog away

in the dark, underwater,

while heads converse.

My body takes me to the deep end

where the sun presides, summer

flooding the high windows.

I close my eyes.

I’m racing from dock to raft,

faster than all the boys.

Rosh Hashana in the Field

Year 5746 of Creation, I sat between my sons,

in a stuffy room, Prayer Book in hand.

This is the birthday of the world!

the cantor incanted.

A blast of the ram’s horn made it official.

On Rosh Hashana it is inscribed,

and on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

Who shall live and who shall die.

But prayer and repentance

avert the severe decree.

“You believe in that stuff?” the little one whispered

a little too loud: “I believe in the Big Bang.”

The older one poked my side:

“Another hauntingly beautiful melody.”

Thirty years later, Hineni, here I am

among the beasts of the field

ages before the birth of words.

God is busy today with the penitents.

I have the earth and the fullness thereof

all to myself. Blessed be.

A sparrow lands on a springy stalk,

rides it fluently to the ground.

The deer come up close and present their ears.

Doing Time

Day goes on collecting

grains of fatigue

one o’clock

two o’clock

that lodge in the tissue,

sleeper cells

three o’clock

four

growing secretly.

I hardly notice when day

five o’clock

six o’clock

slips into dark.

At first I hardly noticed

seven o’clock

eight

the lump. The first

raindrops on the pavement

nine o’clock

ten o’clock

are a casual spatter. All at once

eleven o’clo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Yom Asal, Yom Basal
• I
• II
• III
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author