Lavender sky, enormous pumpkin moon
Leaning low over hackberry, pine, and bamboo
On Old Mountain Road, Danville to Halifax,
Virginia. Deer slip in and out of dusk.
Surely the moon has left its orbit behind
And is about to smash into green earth,                      
Chasing the seas from their confining beds,                
Worldwide tsunamis, people praying in panic,
Presidents and prime ministers herded
By underlings into underground shelters.
But no: before we have arrived back home 
The moon has scaled the sky and shrunk, a small                   
Yellow disk now, but still perfectly round,
Still shadowing the deer on the ground.