Penny Harter - USA


Once in a Blue Moon

blue moon—
my hands cup
to hold it

Tonight will be a blue moon, the second full moon in a month. The next one won’t happen for three more years. Today we see photographs of Mars sent back to Earth by the lander we’ve called Curiosity. These images travel through cyber-space on the world-wide web. One animated panorama shows us Martian mountains, valleys, and pebbles strewn on red soil under an alien sky.

all day yesterday
migrating Monarchs
above the tide-line

My window frames the trunk of a pine, its bumpy bark a varied terrain of dark hills and valleys, crevices meandering through it like fabled Martian canals. Behind the pine, a sycamore raises lichen-covered limbs toward the nearest star. Its leaves droop in late summer heat, soon to yellow and let go. A hurricane-force wind broke giant limbs from this tree a few weeks ago. It is healing. A wind-map of North America blows through this morning's web.

now and then
a dead fly in the corner
of the windowsill