The moon makes patterns on my floor, <br />leaf-edged and almost still. <br /> <br />The thick blanket of night silence cushions <br />the little sounds <br />of talking wood, <br />the rhythmic heartbeat of a dripping tap, <br />a bark in the distance <br />that is passed on faithfully in highs and lows <br />to north and south and east and west. <br />I wish I understood its message. <br /> <br />Sensitivity quivers <br />and a hundred crawling perplexities <br />mate and multiply and mutate <br />into grotesque monsters <br />that pulse electric shock <br />after shock <br />after shock <br />until the patterns on the floor <br />reduce them to limp, exhausted slugs. <br /> <br />I long for night to end and never end. <br /> <br />Leaf-edged and almost still, <br />the moon makes patterns on my mind. <br /> <br />(July 1999)<br /><br />Diana van den Berg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/moon-patterns/
