poetry

I've Nothing Intelligent to Say About the Moon
 - William Winfield Wright

It goes up, comes down, shines
light into the backyard.

When I am in love, the dark spots
outline the face of my beloved;

when I am in a boat, the brightness
scatters across the water.

One theory of its origin, surely
discredited by now, suggests a blob

of excess earth splashed out
of a roiling ocean of lava, another

the result of a collision, a glancing blow,
but in both cases the blunt reminder of loss.

Like a flashlight, it would reflect
in your pupils, make the snow

a kind of blue, be enough to find
your way to an unfamiliar building in the dark.

North of everything, it's the winter sky's
one constant ball, out at all hours,

a metaphor for the missing sun,
a shadow to the cold and tilted earth.