Half Moon Morning

Half Moon Morning


Years back in the slack of the path
to the apple orchard after I'd come up from
the gathering at the lesser creek when bats
almost half had gone back packing
their abdomens in their flat and grabby
geometry I'd wanted to watch the moon
go down through the bones and shoulders
and ricketic elbows of the crones

hunched low from their constant coming through
who can remember how long they'd been
rooted yet another lock-jawed winter.  Once
when I'd walked the orchard before a clean
thaw I'd slipped and skidded hip to hip
and ended with a rash unforgiving kiss
on my chin and the wind insisted

the winter wasn't finished and I limped
twisted as the row on row sisters and I didn't
believe after that in early spring only slack
black coal and enough of a knowing of a glow
of cedar and pine and apple and the humble
hunch  and meager thumbs-up crumble of icy mud
and the almost audible ritz of the Eastern screech

quitting the mid-branch to then get to
sifting the still hillocks where voles or moles
or who all's been told to go home though took
their time took their sweet ole time nosing
the slip thin tongues of green beneath
last year's leaves shy as novice penitents
and new and virgin in their starvations

coming out of their first winter numb
and hungry and the bird curling around
them from above and lifting them and some-
thing somewhere sounds and something
somewhere rises and pines for them
and the cedars light up and the trees
beneath and above me and winter is giving
way like she does and has always done
to apples and, owls and some anticipating,
and select, to May.


Easter Saturday Moon