A Forsaking Moon

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“Is it all the blood on the earth
Makes the shadow that color?”
She asks. I do not answer.
     —Kenneth Rexroth


Late July, when heat presses down upon
The oak-wreathed hills of Tallahassee
Like vivid dreams upon the overslept.
The moon, too low on the horizon,
Is taking on blood. Tonight another friend
Washes his hands of himself, and I of him,
While across the street, Mission San Luis
Guards its bones, a dying dog the city
Feeds out of pity. In our indefensible
Innocence, we build each hour flimsily
As those forts we stole the parts for
From construction sites, the tools our
Fathers’ garages. There in those woods
That are no more, we peeled the tongues from
Palm fronds, sharpened to spear points
The leafstalks with pocketknives given us
At Christmas, then bore each butt into the hard,
Grey dirt around the trenches we hacked through
Roots with spade shovels in digging. Summers
We spent defending and attacking, building up
And tearing down. For all of us, hammer
Swinger, pill slinger, wage slave and soldier
Now, it was practice—as if, like fronds
Unfurling up the cabbage palm’s fibrous
Trunk in that sequential order Fibonacci
Did not invent, but discovered, our
Hands, clasped blindly to some timeless
Rail of no one man’s imagining, lead us
Down the worn-edged, spiral steps
Of history’s invisible stair.
                                             Once here, there is
No going back. And so I’ve wasted this day
And night away in bed, sick with my own
Guilt and grief, only to awaken too late
To accomplish anything. In the offices
Of the world tonight, the bosses wring
Their hands red, awaiting their quarterly
Reports. From my bedroom window
The waxing moon whitens in ascent as it
Forgets the bloodbath shadow of the Earth.