Jim Simmerman
Moon behind Pine
I could say the pine's backlit,
but that's because I'm here,
awake at the window
so early this morning
it's a black pine really,
that's how it appears.
I don't know if anyone else
is looking—no lights burning
in the neighborhood—
but know someone
I want to be....
She's not here,
though I wish she were;
and where she is
she's probably sleeping,
maybe dreaming.
Let it be sweet.
Her little man
has a little face
like a moon
with a mouthful of gum.
All night he's drifted
east to west
across the small sky
of his bed.
Growing up
takes so long.
Now the moon has dropped a little,
and sits on a branch
like a basket of light.
I want it to be spring.
I want the world
unfurled and clear,
and here it is
almost dawn.
I know when she wakes,
the moon will be gone.
I want the daylight
and moonlight to meet.
Oh, moon, moon,
won't you come back and play?
The sky's dripping honey.
The pine's stippled green.
Happy Trails
If it weren't for Bandit,
I'd put a bullet in my skull.
That and the fact that
I don't have a bullet.
Bullet, you'll recall, was
the name of the dog of
Roy Rogers and must be
dead a long time now,
buried somewhere on
the lone prayer-ree. Ditto
Roy, King of the Cowboys
(that bovine aristocracy),
who always found, somehow,
something to sing or yodel
about and, I read recently,
Dale Evans, Queen of
the West. Roy's horse's
name was Trigger (was it
happy?), and so I figure:
a couple of cats called
Smith & Wesson, maybe
Uzi, the parakeet—
a petting zoo of artillery
and, Buckaroos, it's true
it's deep cowpie in them
there hills but—okay, I
admit it—not so bad to be
alive where, any minute,
apple blossoms could spill
like silver from the stage
-coach of Heaven itself
onto these trails I'm limping
with Bandit and thinking of
you until we meet again.
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