The moonlight held its breath
in patient vigil outside her cross-paned window.
She seemed to sense its warmth,
and looked beyond me to glow and glimmer
waltzing upon the lake’s surface, dancing,
skipping between the ripples,
smiling at the ease of time’s merriment.

It came that she closed her eyes,
and with a gasp took in and then refused age
with a lingering hiss. She lay quiet.

~ from the window I watched the merry current
lap against the lake shore. I was not deceived
by the illusionary randomness of sway and swell
of wave, but looked into precise measure,
understood the mathematics of each whitecap,
and yet I knew tonight
the moonbeam held her slender waist,
swept her across the waters.

Thought slipped through the open window
and her hands grew cold. The present encircled
my head, a dark, vaporous nimbus of reflection.
I pondered, suspended above my own cloud …
If my last breathe were to linger with wavering balance
upon the precipice of moment and destiny…
If time were to slip through my well versed and worn lips
until the morrow only and not a sunset more to my name, could I tip my hat to the fray
and slyly tuck a smile into your forever memory,
falling head first into eternity.

Again to the window,
I sought, but the light of the moon
had walked away into the dawn.

Copyright Jeanne Rene Watson