The old lady in the moon

Lying under a million stars,
Feeling small, alone, forlorn,
It was the old lady in the moon
Who winked at me smiling a toothless smile,
And drew me up by the strands
Of stories weaved by her
On her spinning yarn.
Sleeping in her lap I forgot
The frayed collar of my school shirt,
My trousers an inch too short,
And I dreamt,
Of the sparkling strands of stories,
Each coloured with a million hues,
Reflecting moonbeams, entwining, separating,
Coming together at last,
In a sea of stories on the other side of the moon.

Some years intervened, and I understood
Why no one would share his tiffin with me,
Day by day, I had only dry bread to offer after all,
I also realised the wrinkles on the lady's face
Were only craters, and her spinning wheel
Just some hill
On a desolate landscape
Where no sea could ever be,
That was the time I started dreaming
In black and white and shades of gray.

So many years have passed by,
Soon enough there will be wrinkles on my face,
My hair will turn whiter than the old lady's,
And my stories reflect
Jagged shards of broken dreams,
Gray and colourless.
More and more often I wonder
Of the fate of the old lady,
And her sparkling sea of stories.

My eyes will cloud with cataract,
My vision will dim, my world blurred,
Perhaps then I will see again
Dreams in the lap of the old lady,
Who perhaps might still be spinning her web,
There might really be a sea perhaps,
On that face of the moon unseen by men.