In the new moon’s arms

“The new moon in the old moons arms” was something my grandmother always said to me whenever there was a sliver moon in the sky. So, of course, I was an inveterate word thief, and used it in a poem. But Sir Patrick Spens was probably the first to say it in print. Or rather the ballad about him. After a poetry reading at Garbo’s in Guerneville, Jim Montrose once pointed that out to me, and of course I was shocked, thinking I had thought the metaphor up all by myself, being newly arrived to the floodgates of poetry… And of course, Coleridge mentioned it in ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.’  (That’s not marinara sauce!) Then it all fell into place. My grandmother used to quote long passages from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to me when I was young. I was well steeped in the arms poetry, yet never knew it.