February Full Moon

I watch the full moon struggle up the redwood
branch by branch and sympathize. So changeable,
tonight a little mirror on the dark, next week
a sliver of lozenge disappearing in the stars.

A wounded being, not a self-starter,
as the astrophysicists might put it,
just a cold misshapen rock made alluring
by a dose of sunlight and the silent longing
of millions across history, wanting to be—
even three days a month—illumined,
silvering the silent forests, meditating
on the darkened lakes of the Italian Alps,
caressing the high slopes of the Rockies,

providing a haunted backlight for the pure,
high cries of wolves. To work such magic
in so few nights; to drive humans so wild,
to cast such a spell with a pile of frozen magma
and a few errant photons shadowing the dark,

accenting the delicate edges of minarets,
guiding couples into fragrant fields,
lending a subdued sparkle to dew,
suggesting tales of faeries to the moon–addled,
prodding drunken Chinese poets to ancient song.

Happy companion to the lonely, subject
of many a wobbling aria.

---

Will Walker lives in San Francisco with his wife and their dog. He is a former editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. His publications include Carrying Water (Puddinghouse Press), Wednesday after Lunch (Blue Light Press), and Zeus at Twilight (also Blue Light Press). His work recently appeared in two Blue Light Press anthologies: Fog and Light, and Pandemic Puzzle Poems.

[image: Moon over snow covered mountains | 邱 严]