Sturgeon Moon

I can still see it, just a touch of whatyou might call its lip, or maybe a long knife-readyunderbelly. The sturgeon moon is swimming

through the trees. Below it and all around what’s allaround us, what used to be woods is a holein the night, ten acres sawn and burnt and burning.

Our neighbor cut some timber for money and nowis clearing for hay or cows (he can’t decide),and we could watch from almost every window

all through the day the strange flames settle withthe ground. They were huge flowers blooming orthe repeated risings of an orange crow

that could not fully rise, but was tethered insteadby hunger, or curiosity. And tonight,coal-bright, this fishy eye is telling us something

we already know: What’s burnt is always burning,and then that funny thing about summer trees—for a moment the blaze of an early moon, then nothing.