…matriarch of time and tides

The lady moon, matriarch of time and tides
not born of morning, no daughter of the sun
her ever watchful eyes always surveying her realm
the darkness does not phase her, for she knows she owns it
long before time was a concept
she called to the lonely tides with her arms open wide
and the tides joyfully obeyed, their elegant ebb and flow
an eternal courtesy, from the ocean to its queen
beneath her glowing gaze, shivering trees unfold their leaves
as if she had whispered…now, for time also belongs to her
softly spinning in silence, the aching rhythm of her cycles
ebb and flow, darkness and light, an endlessly long arc of grief
this has become her wisdom
floods returning to the womb in sacred tides of renewal
she is the velvet silence, the unseen clocks within our bones
calmed by the hush of her hymns, time becomes meaningless
she owns the moonlight, the turning of the oceans
and the rhythm of the tides
in the breath between thoughts
she is the much-needed light in the dark fields of the mind
drawing our beloved echoes, like tides from our chests
a slow and generous muse
who makes sure that we always
come back to shore
©Ann Bagnall