RABBIT GAZING AT FULL MOON

Waves pound the beach, each rush more unrelenting.

Farther back, willows part and tremble with each slashing gust.

Rabbit is confused by the raw anger of the wind and sea.

High above, each dark and lamp-black cloud

thrusts,  counters, thrusts again.

There is no peace tonight.

Rabbit cowers in the shadowed corner of the Hashiman Temple,

heart beating wildly as  each flashing bolt violates the  sky.

Exhausted, Rabbit lies and waits,

sheltered by the massive timbers

as the rain, in sheets, continues.

Hashiman, secretly bemused by a rabbit in his

House of War, shifts his gaze towards

the sky. The anger thus focused, subsides.

Soon moonbeams punctuate the growing stillness,

drawing Rabbit from the shelter of the eves

to wonder at the painful brightness

of the turgid, swollen luminescence of the moon.

Peace has returned, the God of War is satiated,

violence subsides and in the pine wood clearing

Rabbit gazes skyward

with uncomplicated wonder.

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(1982)