314. No Poetry to Moonlight

Moon comes
big with
winter and

shrinks back
when winter leaves, the
ground

left by
snow no
longer

is
the bigger moon
here,

sound of
breathing
inhabits

night, even
the breathing
body bears

the breath
of it and
hears

what is
to
hear or

not, like
a heart
that’s

some
thing
else

and left
from rushing
blood, what’s

stopped
won’t move,
head

covered in
lamplight
and she

reads in
the mists
of it, stone

on her
hand the
color of

eyes, hair
to see
through,

to hold
back, the
view from

there is
out or
away,

nothing
to see in
night,

window
echoes
face,

the breath
at night
might stop,

or move,
and mouth
go dry,

as winter
dies and
slowly

leaves, the
slowed retreat
of season

from another,
the hand is
creased from

all its
working,
the

writing
holding
having

and could
make a
fire from

the last
damp wood,
tho it

would
take intention,
placing

of birch to
catch the
first flame

and fire,
to send the
breath

of air
right under
it

and give
the fire
its way,

a moon
in green,
what

growing it’s
made, will
hang,

each one
from an
ear, or

white,
and through
slanted

light of
lamp at
night or

sun at
day, and
it all frac-

tures at
the touch
of cold,

to find a
little bit
of

memory
in a hand’s
scar

and hand-
some, to
get the

last breath
out of
dreaming, to

reach thru
darkness and
almost

find, to set
the flint
against

the metal
and spark
that first

flame
of last
fire

at the opening
of April
after the end

of March
and giving up
winter for it,

the time it
takes to take
the time

to see what
night had
hid, what

might be
gained by
knowing,

and by
knowing
only

the few
things it ever took
to make

the course
of living it
out in full:

the breath,
the breast,
the break.