The moonlight rides the evening like a boat
on pearly fog, across the atmosphere,
its perfect circle harnessed to a goat,
its glow diffuse and fuzzy as cashmere.
The rock I hold invites my hand to form
a pregnant fist, its surface slick as silk
and cool as glass that held begins to warm,
its colors gray and orange shot with milk.

The ruminant is foraging July.
It capers in the opalescent bowl
where mist is marbled on a navy sky,
where eons whisper and the omens toll
an energy that can’t be sensed at noon,
but floats on silence underneath the moon.