July Moon

Speech is transmuted when the moon is warm,

Like sculpture curving to an ancient cluster

Or music veering to an older beat;

And all we say takes on the antique lustre

Of metal molten to another form

By a different heat.

"Tonight's a ghost, a revenant, a shade.

See how it stands in white above the clover!

Light from the moons of summers long gone by,

Too lovely to be anything but over."

"Tonight's a monument which Earth has made

From brooding on July."

"This night has treasure she has never spent.

She is the only living presence here,

And while her gaze is on us we exist

And when it wavers we will disappear."

"A thousand times she'll pitch her silver tent

For our returning tryst."

"Here she has salvaged from eternity

Beauty and time in bright commingled hoard. . . ."

And while we spoke, thinking the night was deaf,

We heard her fingering her ivory board,

Transposing land and language to a key

Which has no stave or clef.