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.
