Up earlier than necessary,
I settle in the dark living room
rocker facing west as if waiting
for horses to amble by. The moon
descends the mullions, glass rippled
as a fishpond: obligations still asleep.

Reverie-moon conjures awe-places:
Walpi in Hopiland, Bayeux,
Winchester Cathedral. . . .
I am unaware that dawn opens
the back door wanting breakfast.
Aurora has painted the sky Hiroshige blue:
a magnificence obscuring hardship.

And moon slips into the slot
between mountains like a jukebox coin
of times gone by, a *cowboyography
beyond the horizon. Dawn butters
the risen bread, laughs that reality
loves us in strange ways.

*Cowboyography, record album by Ian Tyson (1986)