This month, one more Moon Prize, the 117th, also backdates to the July 2023 full moon (when, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to coordinate the prize) and it goes to Tamara Madison's poem "Voyager."


Voyager

by Tamara Madison


I.

You were like the last leaf, gone
from green to autumn red, that clung
to the vine into December, just

because it did, through sun and rain
and wind until finally a strong gust
sheared you off and you were gone.

II.

When you left this world,
you abandoned your body like a dress
tossed aside after a night of dancing.

I imagine you — a spark launched
skyward, a comet fording the dark
ocean of the universe.

You don’t have to call to me, Voyager.
I will join you in my time. They say
deep peace will guide you on your journey
into the sea of everything.

III.

You used to wonder about the soul —
where it goes, what it is. You asked
a holy man once, imagining a world
without the body’s needs. I think
that’s where we’re headed, his reply.
You laughed about that for years.

You liked to think the departed stay close,
watching, guiding. So when you were leaving,
I could only be happy for you:
You’re going to find out all about it, Mama!

IV.

But you are gone now; I wait
to feel you near, to hear your spirit voice.

You left behind the earthly you —
your scent lingers among the clothes
I took from your closet, your old concerns
breathe among your typewritten pages
and canvases where a younger you
laid your visions down in paint.

All that’s left of you now
is everything that’s missing.


* * * * *

"Voyager" was first published in the Journal of Radical Wonder and is part of Tamara Madison's new book, Morpheus Dips His Oar.

Tamara Madison is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Wild Domestic and Moraine (Pearl Editions), and two chapbooks, The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press). A swimmer and a dog lover, she is a native of the California desert, but she has lived and traveled in many places. She is recently retired from teaching English and French in a high school in Los Angeles. Her new collection of poems, Morpheus Dips His Oar, is just out from Sheila-Na-Gig Press. Read more about her at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.