Waning Moon

I rise at midnight when the first
sleep staggers into dream.
Later and lesser. In a week

I become the dark.
My music knows its way
to a Nash rusting by a shed,

the slow mating of snakes
in the creek bed. My half-moon
blues, my strum on the two

lanes of an empty road—
the road you're following
beside some dusty milkweed

and the fence. I draw my bow
across the telephone wires,
a thin dirge

for your country, for the end
of something wild,
broad backed, generous.

Listen for me. With help
from the wind, I can pour
my six pale notes

through the night's sieve,
lend you the crickets' cadence
to walk home by.

Copyright © 2004 Conrad Hilberry All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission