诗 | Such, Such Is Mid-Summer Night

At ten I learned to frame mid-summer night sky with the contours of tall buildings around our short little house. On our roof Dad made me a bench out of granite – a dark mirror dotted with starry, starry whites. By the bench a bird planted a purple azalea who bloomed from spring to summer, and to fall, and then, to not-so-cold winter. On full moon night silver light flooded my roof, ankle high. I had a white-jade-colored rabbit, whose leaps rippled the pond of moonlight. I called her Luna. She whispered me Mama. Her eyes shined when I fed her azalea petals with my lips. Azaleas became cranberries when chewed with mint candies.
A sudden pause in cicadas’ lazy chorus
Pink traces from straw mat on the cheeks after a long, long nap in the afternoon
The first crunchy crack on a plump watermelon with a twinkling silver spoon
A brushy nuzzle with Luna’s dancing ears
Patting my shoulders with a big cattail leaf, Granny said there was a palace in the moon. A beautiful girl with vanity abandoned her husband on earth and became a princess on the moon. A lonely, cold moon it was. Princess had only a rabbit named Jade as her maid. A white, soft bunny who made white, soft rice cakes for Princess night after night. So today in mid-summer nights, we eat rice cakes to honor Luna’s home. Oh, no, you can’t see it anymore. Apollo 11 scared them away. Rabbit and Princess are shy creatures.
Luna cuddled my belly, full of watermelons, round like a moon
Never did she tell me, what it was like to live on the moon
Maybe she forgot her home where she used to bath in moonlight
Maybe she preferred the azalea’s bloom in my mid-summer night
2017/5/9