Gift

Gift

Gift

After we had paid the singer,
and the guests had gone
and we had cleared away the food and the glasses,
I went outside again
and the moon, which had been so high over the dancers,
was already four times larger
and even more full,
setting over the hills to the west,
sharpening the black outline of the pines,
making the ridges shimmer,
and I thought of it shining
on the other side, beyond Isola, a long
silver path on the rippled water,
and of the silent ships out there
some of them with their lights still burning,
and of the sailors on watch,
smoking, and drinking quietly into the night,
and of what they might be thinking,
and I realised that, undeserved
and against all odds
something extraordinary had come upon me, a great
happiness,
and for once I didn’t question it,
didn’t ask why.