It's one of those nights
when light falls from the sky
onto the white azaleas,
and you don't know how it is
you can be so happy
when nothing in your world
has been resolved. No telling
what rolls away that stone.
Just like when you were a child —
no one could make you understand the moon,
why it came and went the way it did.
Even now, if someone were to ask you
to explain wax and wane,
you would probably just stammer and shrug.
All the charts and diagrams,
the revolving planet mobile
with demonstration flashlight —
none of it makes any more sense
than a brown bird laying a bright blue egg.
Some things are just true.


© by Pat Hale.
Used with the author's permission