In which a man with the face of the Moon is served tea on the porch of a cabin in the woods by a boy who knows the stars, the only lantern low on oil, new snow on the limbs of the trees
A cloud slips free of the mountain and wipes mist
from the Milky Way. The boy refills the teacup.
“I couldn’t. All good men must sleep. Even young.”
The man laughs. No, he does not laugh. “Even old.
Must cross the waters that draw their dark
past the river’s stones. Each stone a dream.
Dream by dream alone he steps the width
of a valley that goes on forever, and a wind
blows softly on him or blows hard and sudden.
You have only hours to get all the way over,
who have to travel, from day to day night by night.”
The boy tightens the circle of his hands around his cup.
He lifts it again to his face, the steam too cool and the tea
again hot enough to hurt. But he drinks. And stops.
And drinks. When he has finished his cup
he feels wounded; he looks at the man whose face,
lit by no moon, only the blue of the snow,
the dimnesses of stars, regards him or looks on something
other. “More tea?”asks the boy, the pot cold.
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