Poem: Moonlight, Moons Ago

Moonlight, Moons Ago

 

The moonlight, many moons

ago, would splash liquid mercury

 

across the sharpened grass, black

ened from day’s summer sun.

 

The silver glow would recede, then,

into the farmer’s field, beyond

 

the barbed-wire fence, where once

I had cut open my head, jumping

 

through, while trying to catch

an errant cat.   Several moons ( and

 

several cats) after, the farmer’s

field was plowed under, rutted

 

into clay and dirt patterns, a

schematic for the cement roads

 

which foreshadowed houses,

larger than our houses, until

 

at last, the city finally buried the

memory of the farmer’s field.

 

But the moon did not forget.

The moon never forgets.

 

The moon merely pulls back,

recedes, turns away, some would

 

say “sadly,” a dull grey shadow

against the black asphalt shingles

 

of houses burned and black

ened from the day’s summer sun.

MR

2016-0208