Why

Why did God make half a moon, 
Lyle asked when he was three, 
on the back steps, side by side 
with me beneath the quarter’s 
quiet light. I don’t know, I said 
because I didn’t, and still don’t 
know though Lyle now is in his 
twenties, and I am old.

I could, I know, have told him 
how the sun and moon and earth 
create the half, the full, the waning, 
but not the Why of moon or star or 
mockingbird, or why the eel or 
black-eyed Susan, or eyes or feet 
or human beings.

That’s the question, isn’t it, why us 
when given all we’ve done, genocide, 
the ravaged earth, erred and strayed, 
no health in us: And yet today in winter 
light, a squirrel leaps from tree to tree 
as easy as a bird in flight, sun licking 
fur that shimmers silver, a rodent thief, 
I know him well, but even so the heart 
delights, arms lift in wonder, love and 
praise.