I

By the light of the moon
Shapes shimmer
In between flowers and faces,
A smooth whiteness of skin
Along curves of a body,
Or a stream
Disappearing,
Reappearing
Like a voice in the stillness
Whispered in twilight
Fades into the darkness

In the moonlight,
Our empty hands
Cradle a face,
Eyes like drops of water,
Features of cheeks and chin and brow
Worn smooth as stones in water
Shimmering through the shadows of the woods
Out into open fields of grassblades
Where white seeds of dandelions
Drift away on the wind
Into nothing

II

The moon was once a woman
With silver skin like silk
And strands of hair like clouds,
A face of chrysanthemum blossoms
Seen under water,
Blooming overhead
Through the tides of weeks
And ripening months
Where drifting seeds
Grow into children within her,
Mysteriously, numberless as the crowds of stars
And the crowds of stars that fill the fields of skies

III

And we walked on the distant moon
Leaving our footprints in the undisturbed dust
Where no-one could ever follow after;
Alone in the unbreakable silence,
We saw the Earth slowly rising,
With all of its memories of places,
The cities where we were born
And the white of the clouds
Above the blue of its oceans
Drifting off with it,
Growing smaller and smaller,
Further and further out of reach

While our dreams shine around us
In an electricity of black and white
Stilled life,
A flash of lightning in an onyx sky

IV

Out in the desert,
A small town with white walls
And white windows and white roofs
Mirrors the moonlight.

Its graveyard opens to the sky,
Gives up its dead,
Silently, invisibly,
Rising up into the white clouds

Above the white mountains,
And beyond that,
Up to the moon,
Drifting away passed the embrace of the horizon.