Ekphrastic poetry by Camille LeFevre

After “The Weight of the Moon,” by Tina Mion, and Dorothea Tanning’s novella “Chasm”

“The Weight of the Moon,” Tina Mion (American), oil on linen, 2020

The Weight of the Moon

-After “The Weight of the Moon,” by Tina Mion, and Dorothea Tanning’s novella “Chasm”

 				
My father asked – me – 			
mere girl on his lap – 
whether we should leave	
my mother, his wife. 
I said, Stay. 
Knowing nothing 
of what I would carry. 
Or its undertow. 

I was crescent 
cast too soon 
into fullness, bent 
crone-like bearing 
the weight of the moon, 
an untold tally 
of scorn, of cares, 
cresting in demands, 
dissolutions, mid-
night deaths, my clothes 
stained with excretions strange 
as my father in dementia 
waiting dressed in the dark 
and – 	
	I came undone. 

The void drew me 
to a cold northern sea, 
a retreat for daughters 
of despair, rushing in
one morning, chorusing,
You are luminous, their faces
sublime. Pay attention 
to the moon, they sang. 
It moves the oceans. 


My father, eyes cloudy 
as I spooned up food fallen 
into his lap, sensed 
this meal was his last. 
He said, Go. 
Knowing my bristling
to ply poems, desert 
longings, in query 
of my burdens.  

Driving into dusk’s bruised 
light across hot desert 
plateau toward vermillion 
sandstone, crenelated cliffs, 
enfolding canyons
	twin hoodoos rose
		a life in formation 
		a life in retreat 
	the moon
a great pearl hovering 
between them – 
with memories descending 
from round words – 

oh		moon 
	
	home. 	
 

---

Camille LeFevre writes poetry and creative nonfiction. She teaches ekphrastic writing workshops in galleries and arts writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her ekphrastic work has appeared in Unleash Lit, Metphrastic, Poets for Science, and The Ekphrastic Review. In 2023, she was awarded the Scuglik Memorial Residency in ekphrastic writing at Write On, Door County, in Wisconsin. She lives in Northern Arizona, where she writes, hikes, studies Indigenous rock art, and swims in cold-water creeks.