Moonshine Poem by Mark Hamilton

Unable to sleep, I slip out for a fag
at 3.30am
and am amazed by the moon,
hanging like a burnished half-shield
in the field of night around it,
a noiseless trumpet-blaze
of light in the pin-pricked black
that stretches above me, back.

An unseen glory while the city sleeps,
what is it for? It seems to say something,
to signify more…

But I suppose it doesn't.
It is beautiful, a vivid shock,
a flash, a cosmic splash like…
No, it's beautiful, that's all.

It is one of the hardest things to do,
the loneliest,
to let go of good old
pathetic fallacy.

Still, I take it with me back to bed
and as I lay my head
it is shining hazily inside, a night light
fading with me to sleep.