Under the New Moon There Is A Quiet Layer of Cloud And Beneath That The Coldest Day of the Winter Turns To The Coldest Night

Any enclosed space is a temple. While we turned away
the sky came down and delivered news of the moon,

it hangs there just above the trees, a white ceiling
glowing from the light of streetlamps below, it waits

folded like a newspaper delivered but not yet read,
thicker and more important seeming than it will be

when it’s picked through and thinned out
and in some cases like my dad used to do tied in knots

and thrown in the fireplace with kindling where
burning it rises through the cloud’s cold floor

and brings news of the hidden world to the new
moon in its temple of absence