Cloud Memories

The moon gibbous 
And above the hill
Rose in daylight
Like a wisp of cloud
With one hard edge.

Slabs of grey layered the setting sun.

Beneath the sky and its horizon
Trees gathered on the far slopes.

Sunlight broke through
The cloud edges
Flamed brass and gold.

As day went on fading
The rising moon lit himself
Wore a look of disappointment
On his vague three-quarter face.

The moon was looking down
On a world too far gone to save.

Low and bright, lower even
Than the moon’s bewilderment
Jets crossed heaven south to north
High shining beads in full sun
Trailing straight-line clouds
Behind impossible flight.

Dusk condensed a deeper blue
While the last starlings darted
Their own black clouds home
Swift and audible in their passing.

High fair-weather wisps
Followed the contrails to bed
And heaven’s imagined curve
Bent more darkness around us.

Moon hung in the sky
Like a precious stone
Piercing and brilliant
Uncertainly reflecting
Light from a sun now set
Eight minutes old
Second-hand.

© BH, 2017

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I saw the moon rising right enough. And it was like a drifting cloud. Then the plane came over and later the starlings went to bed. I was sure I could hear them  as they flew. 

The moon’s face, not quite full, I recall, seemed to register disappointment. But then, his light, is not his own.

It was just a picture at the end of a January day. The world as ever, a strange place under heaven.