The Sky away from Here
Somewhere, the moon turned copper.
Druids circled Stonehenge in amber robes.
My astronomy professor was on his balcony
with a telescope.
I was in San Francisco, under a thick cloud cover.
In the sky away from here,
shadows of buffalos ran across the moon
and coyotes howled their dirge to the dark night.
In London, a coven of moon-clad women
swept their homes, cooked moon soup,
chanted the old stories,
wore moonstones.
In the Zagros Mountains,
Sufis gathered in a stone circle,
read Rumi for an oracle,
became dervishes at midnight.
In Kyoto, a geisha in Pontocho
wore a kimono painted with a silk moon,
brushed her lover with a feather.
And in the Gatsby Land of the Long Island beaches,
two lovers bathed in a tide pool
using the dark of the moon
as a cover.
In San Francisco, I entered my dreams
as the rain pounded disappointment on my window,
but in the sky away from here,
luminous tattoos
danced across the sky
and shattered into new constellations –
the buffalo, the geisha,
the feather,
a tide pool of lovers
on the far side of the moon.
— Diane Frank
