Night Music

Full moon spotlights the yard, two chairs
& a table empty
as they naturally are, you & I gone
as we must be . . .

I can feel the camellia bush stirring
itself in the shadows,
the innumerable tiny pink petals
spiraling out of the hard buds to be here
in the morning, surprising us
like the first stars
when we pull back the leaves
& discover them under there, blushing . . .

This is the moon
that lays us bare in bone-white light,
this is day seen
against the background of what waits ahead. . .

It’s the blackbird in the lemon tree, not the tree
alone, yellow with lemons, that I love,
not mountains diamondbacked with snow alone
but blackening in the sun, rising out
of the earth like stored-up darkness,
not noon alone,
beast-sleepy, but the cat’s eyes widening
at evening to take in the night.