Moon While Tossing Out Mouse
by Gay Baines
The cat caught a mouse
last night so I came out
to toss the victim in the bushes.
I look up. The moon rests
bright in the branches,
the sky dark, not black yet.
I don't know you,
I've watched you and watched
and written about you, thought I
knew you but you changed.
I must learn again.
It is hard to comprehend
this coin in the cup of sky.
If I stood on your surface
bald landscape would stretch
more miles than I could walk;
there would be no bush
to throw this mouse into,
no trees to peer through
at a gibbous earth. In place of
the white Cape next door
would be a hard hill of stone,
and dust would mold my steps.
Sky would be gone, and in its space
nothing. Earth is a rage, an overburden
of life, all sizes. The dead mouse, flying
through the air to its resting place
will generate life, but you
generate nothing. No wonder
you pass the sun's light
to us; it's all you can do,
your only trick,
and it enthralls us.
About the author:
I live in East Aurora, NY (well, you know that!) and belong to the Roycroft Wordsmiths, a group of creative types who meet once a year at Christmas to drink champagne and eat plum pudding. I write about the moon — a lot — and this is one of them that gives an idea of my domestic arrangements. If I lived on the moon my study would be neater, I think.
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