Two Moods of Night

Jul 20

This week’s poems were written two nights apart, presenting two rather different moods as I looked up at what is now a lovely summer half-moon.

The first poem is song-like in nature with each two stanzas rhyming only with each other, except for the first lines, which are rhymed internally.

Silver moon, silver moon,
Smiling through a lace of cloud
In a silver sky.

Silver moon, like a tune
First played low and then played loud,
You go dancing by.

To and fro through clouds you go,
Melody of shade and light,
Shining all the while.

Fast or slow, all night you glow:
All the sky is gleaming bright
Silver where you smile.

Silver moon, the clouds will soon
Part to let us see you fly;
Silver is your flight.

Silver moon, silver moon,
Summer and the clouds go by;
Silver is the night.

This second poem is quieter and moves between moods in the way the sky changes between moon and clouds.

There's a bow around the moon;
Venus shines behind a veil
Of a haze that's high and pale;
Night will not be over soon.

I am like the clouds that drift
All unseen through dead of night,
Save where stars or moon are bright
And one sees the darkness lift.

Here on earth the dark is deep,
But the cloud tops keep their gaze
Upward where the stars still blaze;
In that glory go to sleep.

So I slumber, lost between
Somber earth and gloried skies,
Waiting for the light to rise,
Lost in shadows and unseen.

To order a paperback volume of The Hillside Diary, or to commission a poem, please check out my Ko-fi shop.

ACM Weekly