Hunters' Moon

Hunters’ Moon

Clear sky: full moon

wearing her ivory wedding dress

she rises on the east

above black filigrees of trees--

her veils cover the night.

Moonlight glances through crystal on

my window sill

and her light strikes the glasses

of a hunter who drags a kill.

A small eclipse tonight --

 many elk spirits hang between

Earth and full moon.

Hunters sleep on the mountain

while elk herds browse all around.

 --Barbara Spring

Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Ice and snow in slow

retreats

where wild wolf packs

 roam

under a copper moon—

after an eclipse

Their howlings spiral

 up

wolf music echoes

  off  stone cliffs

and countless sibilant sea caves

where blue ice lingers still

into late April.

Lake Nipigon waters spill

Lake Superior fills

 and all waterfalls

 seeps

trickles, rivulets,

Gush now fast now slow.

Ice snaps, cracks

 And deep white snow in slow retreat

flows

over rapids and roaring falls as

into the wolf’s head

 it goes.

II

Living water sighs

enters every living thing:

drifting plankton, swarming fishes,

 mayflies dizzy the air

black flies, mosquitoes,

monarchs sipping milkweed,

 blue swallowtails taste flowers with their six feet

pale green luna moths suck sweet sap,

flying swifts and nightjar, owls, loons

all pass through

 and over

the wolf pack

and over

Lake Superior deep and blue.