Moon at Half Past Noon

The peach-true promise softens in the mesh,
a tenderness that time begins to thresh.
I build no house upon that kind of sand,
nor hold the blossom cooling in the hand.

But salt, and smoke, and the slow sun’s caress
can keep a deeper, darker faithfulness.
My heel finds purchase on a sun-warmed stone—
the quiet ground I have learned to own.

See how this bond, a granite shoulder, wears
the moss-soft green of years, the quartz-thread bares.
Outside, the weather rages, wars increase;
inside, the patient, unadorned peace.

This is no falling—but a standing still,
a sky that needs no tribute, owns no will.
Like seasoned timber, bearing grace, not needs,
it grows from root, from quietness, and feeds.

So stands the silence. So the rooted tree
gives shade from its own weathered liberty—
a savor past the first and fleeting zest:
not the brief bloom, but the enduring rest.