Lichen Glows in the Moonlight

Lichen glows in the moonlight

so fierce only cloud blocking

the moon brings relief. Then passed by,

recharged it leaps up off rocks

and suffocates—there is no route

through rocks without having to confront

its beseeching—it lights the way,

not the moon, and outdoes epithets

like phosphorescent, fluorescent, or florescent:

it smirks and smiles and lifts the corner

of its lips in hideous or blissful collusion,

and birds pipe an eternal dawn, never knowing

when to sleep or wake. They might

be tricked into thinking their time’s up,

in the spectrum of lichen, its extra-gravital

persuasion, its crackling movement

remembered as still, indifferent, barely

living under the sun, or on a dark night;

climbing up you’d escape, but like all great

molecular weights it leaves traces

you carry with you into the realms

           of comfort and faith.