Stepping out onto a city street in the cool, unclocked hours of the morning. One looks about, but not as one does in daylight -- i.e. in response to sound. Instead, one looks about in response to the lack of sound. A clawing sound from a burrowing rat isn't worth one's attention. It's the silence that calls upon the mind as to a sailor on shore leave.
the sun is down and the power is out [fade to black] my view becomes naught my thoughts, anything but
Flipping open the tent flap, I see a vast and glowing night sky. It's not the shabby patch of light points of my sky at home. Here, high in the mountains, far from any city, I can make out bands of color and dazzling webs of luminosity. And I can feel the tininess that past men must have felt, a diminished sense of importance that's hard to come by for a human standing on the Earth, where flags are planted everywhere and grand monuments to our pomposity are packed into dense clusters. mountain sky. the cloudless night glows infinite
I saw a silhouette in the moonlight, a man who plodded snow that glowed moonlight. I was mesmerized by the vagabond -- a night-owl nomad moving by moonlight. What'd take me out into that night's cruel cold, seeing only what shone in the moonlight? A deadly urgent case must be afoot, a riddle solved solely in harsh moonlight. But maybe there's no beauty like the moon, and maybe no light flatters like moonlight. If so, the cold must be some puny stakes against the milky glow of brisk moonlight. And so I pull on boots and tug a hat to venture out amongst the pale moonlight. And seeing night as did that wanderer, I know the virtue life finds in moonlight.
I
a winter moon
is seen clearly between
breath fog plumes
II
starry skies,
through the tent flap,
herald cold’s bite
III
cold slinks in
once sleep has taken hold,
settling in bone
IV
winter midnight —
sunlight, a distant memory,
or so it feels
V
how bright the moon
in the mid-winter sky —
yet, no heat
snowy woods
glows in the moonlight
fox tracks
silent hour
smoke, a farm nearby?
who knocks?
barren woods
morning light will pass through
night’s void
who huddles?
a roadside silhouette
hitcher? boulder?
cloud & moon
paint different homesteads
from same scene
Photos courtesy of my wife. Taken on August 29, 2019 in Las Vegas.
chirps & clicks,
throaty frog croaks
nightly nocturne
just past dusk
bats take to balconies
urban caves
mountain skies
glow of nebula
ghosts in color
northern summer
dawn colors ever on
the horizon
deep north winter
light a distant flare
in Stygian eons
glow ripples
breakers by moonlight
time misbehaves
frog croaks
not a glistening back
fixing location
darkness falls
a bat diaspora
to dinner buzz
early dark fall
paired with a drizzle
a sad walk home
a tree twists
or so it seemed by night
breeze and shadow?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 