Sky at Night in the City

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

Last night, I worked late. Driving home on a busy road through this sprawling city, I saw the crescent moon low and big in the sky. It was fuzzy, which made me think there must be some high thin clouds. As I drove, I thought, “I have to describe this.” My first attempt was horrible: “A thin slice of moon, poking through the herniated sky.” Lovely, right?! That was clearly NOT going to do. How to describe the sky in a tasteful way?

Once I got home, I parked and stepped out to take a better look at the sky. It was cloudless! Here and there was a clear, but lonely star. It was just the light pollution of a big city that had given me the impression of clouds.

So I slept on it.

This morning, while I was waking up before sunrise, I thought of the night sky, and set out to describe it in this poem.

I suspect the last line of the first stanza is going to throw some people. Don’t settle too quickly on one picture in your mind. It’s the moon I’m describing, comparing it to that little flash of shoulder or leg showing through an elegant and modest gown.

By the way…. I wrote this quickly, trusting my brain to choose words well. That’s my approach to becoming a better poet: not belaboring any one poem, but pumping out many poems quickly. My theory is that I’ll become fluent in poetry, simply by speaking the language.

(background image by Rosario Gianní on Unsplash)