The Wind and the Other Moon

A drift of torn cloud, daylight
that’s open and clear.  The grackles
wheeze and groan like old
retired gamblers as they wander
and gather.  A sleeping rhythm
in the day, and then sometimes
the wind comes through and makes 
them lift and fall, the crowds
of leaves that were motionless
and silent until now.
	        In the evening,
the notes of a bird, just one,
calling to a big slow-moving moon.
September evening going on 
and changing into deepest night.
The lights along the streets 
are motionless and steady,
the insects hiding in the grass
pursue their copulation song
relentlessly, a thin white moon
is glowing now in its silence
and a long, dismasted cloud is drifting
slowly by.  Soon the trees that make
these heavy stirring shapes, that sigh
as they gather up and soften
and transpose the dark will strip
themselves (like those old men
who leave their wives and families
to wander naked on the roads)
and then their brittle cast off
leaves will scratch and crawl
along the roads to give the only
sound of winter nights
and then the wind
and the other moon will have
come into their own