Moon

We lazed

upon a crescent moon submerged to the West
embedded in ornamental planting schemes,
soft rushes, alliums, malvas, roses,
behind them, between a moat
and Suffolk-red, brick-stacked walls
- there ached two mulberry trees,
heavy with harvest,
gnarled by age -
stained the fingers,
stained the pockets of light bathed clothes,
a shrill, glittering, bittersome rouge.
Beyond were two white squares,
bordered by box,
crammed with cosmos and yarrow,
angelica, honesty, dahlias,
we slept between iron maidens,
hammered, rusted in various phases,
towers of ceramics, steel,
glass, gargoyles of terracotta,
the horses, hares,
dogs, shrew, a dragonfly.
There the Sun God stood,
held feet, those of a shoulder carried young one,
and the lotus flower unfurled
on a path of citric-leafed limes.
In water, beneath white bridges,
the koi, iris beds, outstretched bullrushes,
waterlily, thyme,
grew quietly
while we lulled,
let magic glisten across flesh like sweat,
rested, connected,
wrapped in the vitality of existing.
We listened to others, enraptured, exist,
and you asked me
if I believed, if I worshipped the Moon
and I traced the Sun God
as he carried his child on our skies.