Moonlight

I watch moonlight
flowering behind black hills
as sheet lightening
paints the night sky
lavender, indigo, violet.
In the distance thunder rumbles on
like someone else’s business.
In my garden the vegetation
is silent, still
as if holding its breath
in restrained rapture.
Limbs and leaves
receive tiny droplets of rain
with the monastic patience
of those who have waited long,
faith unyielding.
A ringtail possum
climbs to the highest branch
of a plum tree, stretches,
her underbelly white
as moonlit cloud.
She glares at me,
prehensile tail coiled tight,
sprung-ready,
as if wanting to be the first
to glimpse that silver cusp of moon.

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