. . . moonlight

Mysterious lover, you are a riddle read by moonlight,
and my yearning for you a gaunt goblin fed by moonlight.

For us no garish, glittering, sudden, sunlit romance;
but let us slip away stealthily and wed by moonlight.

Swear not by constant gods: love is ephemeral.
Like foolish Juliet, swear instead by moonlight.

And will we traverse different forests, you and I,
I chasing my compass, while you are led by moonlight?

On a pile of leaves beside this stream I make my bed,
while, on a cluster of stars, you make your bed by moonlight.

Thus the incompleat logician strives to calculate
the product of equations multiplied by moonlight.

To Estill Pollock's ghazals. To June 2002 index.