Destination

(after Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter)

I lie down in my little room,
my ghost limbs restless on stiff sheets.
Where the moonlight filters green,
I know he is waiting beneath the yew tree.
Through the small snowed-up window
I can see Cancer flicker in a crystal sky.
Neither the walls of the hut nor the roof
can keep out his fearsome spell or
can dispel my fancy that I am myself
no longer woman. No longer flesh but merely
moonlight, gliding along the spires and ridges
of rooftops towards a cold constellation, east
of the mountains, through the white valleys.

Note:- the lines in italics were written by Ritter, the rest by myself.  This is an example of a coupling poem where a section of prose is reworked into a new poem by responding/echoing each line. I wrote it as part of the NaPoWriMo challenge.  The aim is to write a poem every day in April, National Poetry Month.