Mapping the City: DC Places, Part II
Volume 11:4, Fall 2010
Moonrise Over Washington
November 11, 2008
For half my life
Ive walked by this river
late in the afternoon,
evening coming on
like a dream of home
or a mirror
in which failure, already dark,
keeps darkening.
Today, sycamores blaze
behind half-bare oaks, box elders,
and the waters silver surface
runs orange, then rose,
then twilight blue.
Twigs snap high on the hillside.
I turn to see a stag
turning to see me,
and overheadmore astonishing
the full moon caught in branches.
Its five oclock.
Leaves sway and flare,
gathering on the towpath
each shape distinct, each color
Novembers moon lifting, now,
above the treetops, the city,
the reclaimable world.
Jody Bolz is the author of Shadow Play (Turning Point Books, 2013), and A Lesson in Narrative Time (Gihon Books, 2004) and has been executive editor of Poet Lore since 2002. Her poems have appeared in Indiana Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner and Poetry East. To read more by this author: Museum Issue, Wartime Issue, Five Poems, Volume 4:1, Winter 2003.