Second full moon in one month tonight
Through my skylight, I watch
it take its high place before I set binoculars
outside on a tripod and search its bright surface.
I see a navel on the moon as if it hung
once
like a large fruit, white lines holding
its roundness like the ones on an orange under the peel.
I think of your arms growing tight
around me
as your flight's boarding began and remember
to you the moon was always a brave soul,
lying on its back with its tiny toes in the air,
alone in the big blue sky and the funny moon didn't care.
I sang these words to you and never
wondered
if the planet that gave birth to the moon
was as brave as her offspring, if vines and trees
mourned the dropping of their ready fruit.
As the first fall fog rolls in from
Puget Sound, I walk
toward our front door crunching the fallen berries
of our mountain ash trees, almost believing
you will be inside, a girl once again under table light
folding origami paper into cranes, crossing cooking
skewers for a mobile to hang them from.
I sit awhile on the front porch staring
into wet leaves,
listening for the quiet song earth sings, her belly
full of stems, her daughter far away and bright.
Sheila Bender, Copyright 2001