The yard could be silver overcast sky
seen through the lean branches crossing.
I could stare all night, disappointed thinking:
where is that confounded moon?
The moon, that old toad palace, has seen it all and tonight
I am seeing the world with moon vision:
from my dark house it is a soft ghost
of all the worlds it has ever been to someone
Looking out at it from their window at night.
I don’t dare turn on a light; then it’s my ghost
that will be visible. Pausing outside my son’s door
I look in—the moon’s light freezes on his floor,
pretends it’s not there until I leave. By a lamp
near our bed, my wife plays guitar while I write,
Years from now, when this house has fallen in and
a squirrel skitters across a branch at this height
it will hear a soft music, some murmured words
and see the moon slide behind a gypsy’s leaf.
Translations from the English 