vap poya

this evening's hunter's moon
looms low on the horizon,
rising softly at sunset

we point the body out to each other

helping hunters track
their prey, farmers work
the fields into the night.

we dance among the stars

the moon punctuates the sky,
there is no long period of darkness
between sunset and moonrise.

we make our own constellations

the ecliptic plane
of Earth's orbit around the sun
makes a narrow angle

our arms entranced and entangled

with respect to the horizon
in the evening in autumn,
acute gesture from the heavens.

we laugh at the world's pace

in the northern hemisphere,
the Hunter's Moon appears
late in the year, usually October.

a beacon of hope, stepping stone

This day is a feast day in parts
of western Europe and among some
Native American tribes,

means to the path's dusty end

the Feast of the Hunter's Moon,
though the celebration had largely died
out by the eighteenth century.

which we walk from star to finish.