March 2016

Ruth Moose
rumoo@email.unc.edu

I taught creative writing at UNC-Carolina, was on the faculty for 15 years.  Have published 6 collections of poetry most recently Tea and The Librarian.  Available from Main Street Rag Press. My first novel, Doing it at the Dixie Dew won the Malice Domestic Prize from St. Martin's Press and was published last year.  It has done well and the sequel, Wedding Bell Blues is due out 2016.  Am working on the third one, Daylily Do Off at the Dixie Dew.

​In Dreams Comes the Indulgence of Secret Sorrow
“Oneirodynia activa:A violent and troublesome imagination 
in time of sleep, exciting to waking and various motions,”                             
                                                             -Dr.Alexander Anderson, l796

The man who stands behind the door in my dream,
doesn’t answer when I call out to him.
I see only his shadow, his silhouette, the way
he moves in and out of the light.  He won’t come in.
He won’t go away.

The man behind the door stands in the light.
Just outside my bedroom, he leaned once
in the opening as though he might come in.
But no, he stepped back.  I call his name
and hear only silence, the tock of the tall
living room clock.  The cat, curled at my feet,
stretches, looks to the door too.  Won’t you
come in?  Are you going away again?
Oh, husband.  Lost, lost, lost since I laid
you below the grass.  





The Bridge


The soul of an acorn
Is after the ego goes
To school.   One must
stoop a little
to get water 
from the river
follow the stream.
Uphill and down
Walking with others.
Jung said
We must jump right in.
Get it done.
Hold the bucket fast
Lower into the water.

“Do you believe in God?” 
someone asked as he lay
one breath away.  “I don’t
need to believe,” Jung said.
“I know.”

©2016 Ruth Moose