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Teakettles, The Moon

Peter Money 
Landed in Vermont, I find myself spreading ash
over the icy driveway on the plateau where the house
sits, something of an Alice Springs with trees all
around--tall, several dozen thick pine trees
 seem to brace the sky along the upward driveway
    & around the house at the ridge, the trees
            create a natural parthenon in the vein
	of Maxfield Parrish--& at night the snow lawn
    	glimmers blue under the wide eye of the moon
           	 high above the chicken coop. Ash will help
	 our footing.
	       One pine, behind the coop, is the size
	       of a silo. The chickens sleep near
	       its stem.
	         I wonder,
	       what do chickens look like
	       when they're asleep--
	       teakettles?

The moon's a mystery to me & that's no mystery at all,
as it's a mystery to most--perhaps even to those
who've walked its surfaces--jumped, bounced,
--I'm an acolyte & the moon's my catechism;
  I become fixed, blank, my cells freeze under hot
  ice, the moon's glow, is this demagoguery?

The golden dog wags his tail.

We're far from Islam & yet I've been
thinking about Islam for several days: how
the masses want to massacre the author of a western
book, a fiction.

The moon is not worth killing for, but I
would be sorry to see it go.

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