Moonrouse

Toffee penny moon stuck

in the low branches of the birch

between sagging buildings here.

Dog fox barks down the dark

in its den under the arched elm.

Willow drinks forbidding deep

in a shifting sliver of stream

silver blue with speckled stars.

Where we are, 

there is certainty at play,

with no-one watching tonight.

A sense of passage just gone,

as if someone was here,

but nobody walked.

Some performance has been

played out,

not for the likes of you or me.

It is in the trees, believingly stirred,

the dry dice throw of leaves

touched transient by the breeze.

Now in the moon rouse,

good lady night alive,

here to dusk's echo.