Evening Conversation

Reckless and white as a flashlight beam cast

into some dark corner, the moon

insists on the deeper blackness

surrounding it. Perhaps it wishes

to be a woman or a window, 

cushioning everything, full of itself

for the moment, yet frightened, like any egotist.

But still the stars patiently insist

on their presence, pinholes to nothingness. 

When else would I walk on such a night in the world? 

Half answers suggest themselves. 

The body consumes and wanes, collapses. 

We get to watch how everyone

dies who dies before us,

how birds rest. 

And yet while night solidifies, 

we can continue our discussion

in our effort to open the gift of the world, 

our hope to find years

in this box we tear apart. 

Birds do not count in our calibration. 

They crack time randomly, as if it were seeds. 

With sudden unaccountability

they start up and disappear. 

And yet, in some way all of this

is beside the point, for what can we do

except continue our conversation, 

and what would we gain if we disappeared? 

They tell us that this is so. 

Do you have any songs from your childhood

you still use to sing yourself to sleep? 

Being, mind, ego: the moon loves itself

in cloud shimmers, dancing as if it had pulled

a scant nightie off a laundry line

to clown with. 

We can only walk while there is light.