Lake, 6:10 p.m.
October
By Jacob Polley
Although a tide turns in the
trees
the moon doesn't turn the leaves,
though chimneys smoke and blue
concedes
to bluer home-time dark.
Though restless leaves submerge
the park
in yellow shallows, ankle-deep,
and through each tree the moon
shows, halved
or quartered or complete,
the moon's no fruit and has no
seed,
and turns no tide of leaves on paths
that still persist but do not lead
where they did before dark.
Although the moonstruck pond
stares hard
the moon looks elsewhere. Manholes breathe.
Each mind's a different, distant
world
this same moon will not leave.
Source: Poetry, September 2006. Jacob Polley is an English poet born in 1975. Posted with the gracious permission of the poet.
Comments