Giles Goodland
Moon Harvest
Dirty old moon, will God never polish you?
You send back a thousand-mile stare
compacted of dust, reflected light
and what we choose to put into you.
You say it’s not you that’s dirty and irregular,
it’s the sun that’s too perfect.
I linger under the impression of your great seal
and long to taste tomatoes grown in your silver soil
like drops of blood on a coin.
We can never match your full-blown love.
We hate you as you taught us: in phases,
with the phosphor we breathe out
on winter nights, and sometimes with desire.
We rushed into you and went home,
paid a handful of visits, found you
older than we thought, powdered,
barren. We did not call back for years.
You still smile thinly on us.
But as a cloth of cloud polishes the stars
the rust of night falls away
and a haft tightens in its handle. Slowly,
a clean sickle prepares to leave its sheath.
Page(s) 146
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