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Paul F. Cowlan

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Moon Sledging

I

Don't forget the moon.
She's ruffling her hair and scattering shadows from the wood.
When you sledge down a gully her cold breath hits you
as if she were perched on the rim, breathing into your face.

She flexes a fan of white feathers,
shakes out a net of brass stars
and, dipping her glass pen,
etches curlicues and sigils on each branch;
signing her name and forging the wind's cuneiform.

But, for all her barefoot dances,
when you actually look up
she displays only a gibbous keel,
a slicked runner skating matted cloud
and, head down, face close to the ice,
you suddenly recall that
out of all the dunts and swoops and stallings of this fragile afternoon
only the lightest cuticles of snow were her idea.

 
II

Never forget the moon.
She'll re-arrange the months and set you spinning;
the bloom and blight of her cheek
cocked to the sun's star-solitaire,
his sinuous comets and ecliptic ladders
where she pirouettes in brittle shoes.

Accept it.

You'll never even touch the rungs,
where night by night she trolls her blue mirror,
whispering growth and confusion.
She's drawn you down to sleep so many times
even the roots of your shyest dreams
are cobwebbed with her silver frost.

 

Page(s) 82-83

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