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Poems


The Moon

I don't always pay attention to it,

but I do notice it from time to time--

when it is especially large and bright over the lake,

or a cold crescent through the bare trees in winter,

or when I come home late and get out of the car

and it occurs to me that the driveway

is bathed in a glow, all the way up to the door,

and I look up and see the moon

white and silent. How strange

that among the immensities of space and infinity

our planet should happen to have

a single round rock circling it,

catching the sunlight, always cool,

slipping the darkness on and off so calmly,

slicing time and timelessness

into months, such a human span, always

swinging its oval around us.

As if someone had said, those human beings,

they'd like to have a luminous orb

in the darkness of the night,

and while we're at it, let's have it change shape,

slowly, but not too slowly,

so they can count out their lives with it,

as well as look up now and then

and feel a wash of beauty

and what a mysterious place this is.



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