Talk to me,
brother moon.
I cannot be another moon
I am a tree and a forest of trees
I am an oak; I have acorns and robins
My twig-fingers, roots and limbs,
seedlings and saplings and sap-boned friends
generate their noisy green all day
All day I am bedecked and bespangled by sister sun
Her fluff-clouds muffle me, fuzz me, obscure me,
then blow me bare
Her thousands of cameras regard me,
blinking their lizardskin shutters
again and again
and again
So find me,
brother moon.
When all the breathless butterflies
have fallen from their worn-out wings
When the busy squirrels are still in their hollows
dreaming their consumer dreams
When the squeaking beaks are voiceless
before the voice of the dark,
and their peacock-in-paradise fashions
are black & white like the rest
Look at me,
brother moon.
I cannot be another moon
and one moon
is enough
When the night is glassy and damp
When the wind is stilled to a moth’s breath
and the moths with their grey-flannel dignity repose
on my well-wrapped trunk
When the odd owls
signal and silently hunt
When the wolves bring out
their clear eyes
When the ghosts of things are apparent,
the truths of things,
the feral amoral open mouths
of things
Limn me,
brother moon.
I will inhale your lupine light,
taste its plain taste, like deep-cave water
and shiver these starry shivers
and gleam this wyrd gleam
and sing this mossy song I have kept for you.