Harvest Moon

By Tim Seibles

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Big Sister, apple light, kiss

on the river—tonight

make each word a strange dish

each long ache, for once, a gotten wish.

Let this small song brush the big dark back

while you stroll along the sky forever.

Yo, to think such bright shadow, this

black sash, that soft shine She wears

comes spun from a sun flung aloft

The other side of my world. That

cat-eyed glow! That well-keyed

mischief! What slow hands

deft and auspicious, undress

my grim predictions, juice up

my ragtime shoes? It happens

on the now, while the moon is unshy.

My soul—yo, otherwise a pale theory—leaps

into the visible, trying his slippery spin

on the glad lap of Earth. Uncles, mothers,

sly lovers, mad friends, the moon does not

come back just to knock our dim efforts

nor does the river bend away. Wasn’t it

this time last year? Remember?

The chubby invitation come soon, soon

each early autumn. Look at the water

with the light jingling like a windchime

in the shimmer. Turn around.

Our hearts shine late in the trees.