Poetry by Tad Tuleja
The flat soft pallor of this night’s moon
Sidles noiseless to my window
Turning the slatted blinds I have not closed
Into ebony and silver prison stripes.
Whisks of moon lean in beckoning
But I am snug though sleepless
And I have been out there before
When the ground was painted ashen
And the air had given up its breath
To windless mystery. Human eyes cannot
Bear that color. What creature would be afoot
At such an hour? I hear no owl’s wings,
No coon-rattled trash cans, no feline squawking,
Only my wife’s gentle breathing, best of
Consolations, until—there!—some distance
Away, the thinnest of whines flutters
The ash, as Coyote scopes the ground
For skittering fieldmice. In safer light, tomorrow,
I will find his calling card, the berry-pocked scat
He places in driveways as if to say:
Come, drowsy brother, break fences
With me. I will show you a moon
You have not seen before.
Tad Tuleja, a folklorist and songwriter, has edited anthologies on vernacular traditions and military culture and received a Puffin Foundation grant for his song cycle “Skein of Arms.” Visit https://skirmisheswithpatriotism.buzzsprout.com for his weekly podcast. Under the musical alias Skip Yarrow, he performs songs on www.skipyarrow.com and You Tube.
