The moon –
the midnight moon on this,
the dawning of my fortieth year
(my forty-first orbit as my little brother,
perpetually twelve in my aging mind, might say),
is a cradle, a concave crescent rocking
in a velvet sky of comfort.

Swaddling
swabs of softest white
hold my love for you, that miracle born
in me from a seed that was always there,
from my earliest years. And suddenly I am
swept back to the “funny little man”
I saw in pre-adolescent dreams –

that smile enough
to keep me searching, scouring
faces in crowds for decades. I thought
I saw you in the Magic Kingdom in ’76,
at the World’s Fair in ’82, three times
the summer of ’86 in Atlanta and
a dozen times again.

Through tears
the thin golden glow ringing
round my birthday moon tonight
resembles a translucent rainbow halo,
a circle of hope. And now it’s up to us
to join hands, to reach for God
and bring it to completion.