A single raft floats free in midstream;
the palace of the moon lies open to your wandering.
Silk-skirt music fills your ears, pauses —
wine and poems and song — when would you ever stop?
The verse puts a single raft in midstream with the moon palace lying open ahead — the impossible distance made stroll-able. Like the emperor who wished on the moon and was handed a bridge to it, you are in a rare window where wanting and having draw close. The mechanism is embarrassingly simple: articulate the wish to someone who can grant it. Ride the raft — the water is holding still for you; the only thing keeping the palace distant is the wish still unspoken.
“The palace of the moon lies open to your wandering” — clarity is the attractive force this season: the bridge forms only toward the spoken wish. What is named can be answered; ambiguity keeps charging rent. Say the thing you have been circling — the door in this verse opens outward, from your side.
“A single raft floats free in midstream” — the money in this verse moves because somebody asked the water for passage: the number spoken is the number negotiable, and terms loosen in response to articulation. The distance between wanting and having is voice-length — name the figure out loud.
“Silk-skirt music fills your ears, pauses —” — whispered vacancies: roles circulate by word of mouth before they are posted, and the wish told to the right person arrives by bridge rather than by application. Ride it — send the ask to the one who can say yes, and let the invitation do the paperwork.
Write the ask you have been swallowing, and send it to one person who can say yes.
