WOLF MOON 2010
Already pictures in from London, Chip beneath
a lighter stack of books tonight, his burden
of literature lifting a little, shifting towards
his homeland and shaky California, but we
have yet to feel the darkness. Yet to see the wolf
clear the sharp Sierras between here and Elko.
We are all apart, each undone by distance, yet
together in tonight’s sky. I trust my mother
anticipates the proper moonbeam as she
trains her wings. Driving home at dawn,
the sun leaked like spotlights upon the Yokohl,
angling through low gray openings, snow
upon the Kaweah peaking into the light rain –
the kind of glory artists have captured in oil
for centuries. One must thank someone
for the real thing. She is not religious, despite
her hands folded across her breastless chest,
shoulders quivering in unison as she sleeps.
We imagine angels adjusting and attaching
feathers, a fluttering with the rising moon
we share with her ascension from this flesh.