Waiting for moonrise

By Judith Strasser

August 23, 1999

Walk the shingle for beach glass

etched to pale turquoise, watery mauve

by the actions of time and wave.

Last night the moon was full,

two knuckles over the island

when you found her at Julian Bay.

A bluebird feather washes

out of the surf. The clouds yield

pink pearlescence to a seagull gray.

Scan the horizon, catch her

coming over the mainland -

lake-rinsed memory

of orange hawkweed -

through a scrim of isinglass haze.