The night will bring a harvest moon.  I  have seen many and they are special.  Brilliant and lighting the sky with magic, even though it is Friday the 13^th.   I hope there will be dancing with moonbeams and children will laugh as they gather them in baskets like rare gems designed only for their eyes.  And they will forever remember from where they come.

Harvest Moon. . .

Within the circumference of the full moon
lies a world of power calculated
to make a man weep.  A harvest moon,
brimming with light,  great light,  prolongs
the day’s labor to make the fields clean,
preparing them for the covering of frost
that will freeze the ground and make way for the snow.

The snow comes in drifts, hiding the stubble
where field mice chew and multiply.
It provides a playground and home
for creatures close to the earth’s crust.

But in the silos, in the barnyards and lofts
is stacked the world’s bounty
to feed those who labored through
the long hot summer to ready the table
for a well earned thanksgiving.

We just suppose the winter will be hard,
written though it has always been for
the old ones to see in the landscape
of the harvest moon.  You could not bear
to look at the full moon too hard or too long.

Every farmer soon learns this.
The pull of the moon raises the tides only so far.
But you instinctively knew

that only so far was all the way home.