Haze

[rejectomorph]

Nine o'clock and the waning moon isn't up yet. Last night, it had clouds to rise among, and the light of it was like the pale ghost of an ancient sunrise. Tonight, the sky is merely hazed. The frogs and crickets are singing, but the woodpeckers have fallen silent after having spent the dusk chuckling on their way to their nests. I hear dogs bark at nocturnal rustlings as the trees lose the last detail of leaves and twigs and become silhouettes against the darkening sky. The haze has dimmed all but a few emerging stars.

In a while I'll go back outside and see what the moon can do to liven up that sky. By then, maybe the haze will have begun to form clouds again. For now, the cool air smells of jasmine and grass, and will be pleasant to sit in a while longer. In a few hours the cold will shut down the jasmine's perfume, and after midnight there could be rain. Tomorrow, rain is almost certain to fall. It is less than a month until the summer solstice, and this may be the last rain of the spring. I will eagerly await the sound and smell of the first drops.




Sunday Verse

Serenade

by Kevin Young


I wake to the cracked plate
of moon being thrown

across the room—
that'll fix me

for trying sleep.
Lately even night

has left me—
now even the machine

that makes the rain
has stopped sending

the sun away.
It is late,

or early, depending—

who's to say.
Who's to name

these ragged stars, this
light that waters

down the insomniac dark
before I down

it myself.
Sleep, I swear

there's no one else—
raise me up

in the near-night
& set me like

a tin toy to work,
clanking in the bare

broken bright.