To My Companion Who Has Faithfully Returned

This again, in honor of a new book almost out, Our Moon. This first ran July 16, 2018.

Curve of silver,

Scythe becoming,

Calends pass as you appear

Bowing toward Venus.

The evening star gleams just beyond your embrace,

And you curtsy to it, reaching

Like a dancer, arms outstretched and back bent, arching

While Jupiter, behind, tries to catch you

And in a few nights, will succeed.

Twilight sky full of blinks,

Innumerable glitterings,

Firefly, Star, Satellite, Jet

And you, oddly different —

Not quite dominant,

But ascendant,

Inscrutable, argent agent of the crepuscular,

That moon, which the sky never saw even in dreams, has returned.*

*After Rumi, Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi
Photo credit: Top, NASA Scientific Visualization Studio; Middle, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, via Twitter