Turning Sky

The moon rises over Mississippi.

A dish of boiled peanuts sends

a ripple of vapor over her face: but quiet,

and long lines of shadow grow.

Say, in the north country, far away,

the frost is buckling interlace,

Celtic knots that will burn away with the sun.

Say the little girl with immodest hair

can't be in two places at once: even so

at waking she holds the earth of each

in one dreaming hand, and the same sky turns

with bright enameled birds:

herons stalk, and a sudden rushing pair

of pileated woodpeckers

answers the taste of home

and the shine of her willful head.