December 2012 Selected Poem #3

                                    Sleeping Under a Desk with Dog

In my mind’s eye, this night is the brightest
of the month; the full moon reflects the sun
and silvery shadow would normally calm the
quiet wood, allowing me to voyeur the nocturnal
happenings of animals normally only heard,
unseen; bear, coyote, owl.

In my mind’s eye, I hear the calm moon
light the sky in the night’s quiet.

Tonight, the moon is a tertiary
influence to the tumult around. We can see
nothing - nothing but the protected candlelight -
candlelight that penetrates the forest about
as well as the full moon.

Mother Nature trumps herself; we hear the
tumult of wind, the cracking of trees, windows
battered by lateral rain. Sandy blots out stars,
moon, creates her own night, her own nightmare
-- suggesting destruction with loud crashes barely
penetrating past the wind’s voice.

Sandy, Sandy, insists on upstaging coyotes and
owls. In the dark of her night, she rearranges
trees, stripping the fall of color, felling transformers
relegating us to days of darkness,
of imagination. It would be easy to give in to small
girl’s fears - dead branches against dark window.

The moon beyond watches in passive silence. It
is only by faith that I know it’s there.

In the clearing day, when gray gives way to color,
and wind has claimed its victim trees, we walk
inspecting her work. She has kindly felled a 2’
diameter tree, laying it precisely parallel to the
drive; a fresh cache of firewood for the coming
winter. A car hood from an unknown car
stands as tombstone.

--Stacey Knapp