Inconstant Moon

by Emily Cavin

I saw your face last night

Or should I say, this morning?

For it was several hours after midnight,

The mile marker pushing

Yesterday behind today.

I caught sight of you sailing low in the trees,

Now in full leaf to announce the imminent arrival of Summer.

I only glimpsed the liquid, pale, light

that just a short month ago,

Filled me and floated into every corner of the darkness

Guiding me out of my own black spaces

With the vision of a path that would know me when I found it,

The direction always clear.

And it is true –

I have begun to find my steps on that road

Since last you soared, full and indisputable

Washing the whole world silver.

But Now

With the sweetening of the season well begun

And the bright blooming of all the beings in the garden

You sink toward the hills

And I have to seek you out,

Just as I begin to waver,

To wonder what signs can be trusted to keep me on the journey.

The land and all the creatures in it

Reel from a week of unfathomable weather

Soaring from super-heated hail storms and spinning tornadoes

To crash into days and nights of relentless rain

And temperatures that struggle in vain to grasp the forty-degree mark,

Dooming picnics and bonfires and celebrations

Throughout New England,

And finally crushing the Adirondacks with over two feet

Of damning late May snow.

Watching you slip behind the darkened branches

I called silently

In the hope, the dream-like promise

That you would return some night

Perhaps months from now

When Summer signals that her glow is almost spent

And we worry for our winter readiness

Then might you come back to me

Saying, yet again,

“You are not lost.

Keep true to my light

No matter how it may appear to wander

And you will always know the way.”