Crow Moon
Tonight is the rising of the Crow Moon,
the full moon, the Supermoon,
when the cawing of the crows signals
the end of winter, the end of skeleton trees
children with fevers, streaks of late snow
on the bricks, first crack of in the frozen lake.
Crust Moon, Sap Moon, Sugar Moon
Worm Moon,Wow! Moon. Moon
in all its windblown wildness, its long distance
somewhere, open as a marigold
in a skull's eyesocket hung by a shoelace
above the chiseled hills.
And we stand below it, don't we, young
as we'll ever be, no matter how tough
our hearts, thick with scars, no matter
how nervous we are on the earth's
crumbling front porch, nothing
but a few keys in a pocket?
We stand there, looking up wondering
which time it was when we saw this moon
before,wondering, if ever we might
see it again, crows in the black trees
preening their wings, slicking them back
like teenagers in a '50's movie, sleek
in their leather jackets, each one
a feathered rebel without a cause.
by Dorianne Laux
from "Sierra" The Magazine of the Sierra Club /Spring 2022
My brother, Brian, and I both read this poem on the last day of winter 2022. He in California, I in Cape Cod, my sister, Nancy, pointing it out to me in our daily call. Bri sent it to his siblings. It strikes a beautiful chord.