“From Tsukiko, While Watching the Moon”
© 2025 by Michael L. Utley

I have waited long enough
among midnight forests
and somnolent bamboo groves
the furtive whispers
of pensive yurei
a forlorn supplication
to dissolve further
into the rayless world
of lost souls
to seek the sleep
of bōkyaku

cloistered among
susurrating reeds
I bathe my feet
in Sanzu’s nocturnal tears
adorned in fragrant
willow shadows
as koi drowse
in the depths of dreams
and kitsune slink
clandestinely
their night-thoughts
unfathomable

the red footbridge
dun and sullen
in this half-light
recedes into nothingness
an abandoned relic
leading to nowhere
its purpose forgotten
another ghost in this
world of ghosts

beyond the bridge
emptiness

somewhere out there
lies a buried memory
the bones of a life
once lived
once lost
forever regretted
a recollection unknown to all
but mindless breeze
and insentient earth

above
insensate stars spin
upon eternal axes
their astral trajectories
a testament to futility
their presence neither
proof nor denial
of divinity
alignment
retrogradation
degradation
collapse
blackness
silence
eternity in the
blink of an eye

oh, but you, arrogant moon
gōman’na tsuki
skulking through the trees
your cold light casting you
as villainous
your spectral aria
a surreptitious siren-song
I must resist
oh, moon
your dubious countenance
burned into my soul
your serrated sickle’s
jagged tracks still scarred
across my pallid wrists

you don’t know me, moon
in your hubris
you assume all things
in your haughtiness
you presume to decide
the fates of men
your judgments
surpassing Enma’s
in their brackish cruelty
your domain the darkness
and all who dwell within
you of many faces
and the tongues of serpents
beguiler of hearts and minds
you don’t know me, moon

but I know you

you named me Tsukiko
birthed me in
the gloom of obscurity
flung me upon Fuji’s flanks
and fled
moon-child
daughter of Tsuki
I have watched you
all my life
from afar I contemplated
your shifting phases
your covert risings and fallings
your feckless betrayals
your eldritch gleam

and I waited
for acknowledgment
for recognition
for the simple pleasure
of moon-dapples
on lotus ponds
and still I wait

you don’t know me, moon
and you never shall
for now I embrace my fate
and begin my journey
into the tenebrous aether
of oblivion
no more shall I hope
for that which you cannot give
no more shall my tears
blind me to the truth
no more shall my dead heart
ache from your rejection

I am Tsukiko no more