Late-blooming moon

Rising
sometime after midnight
to face the late night demons
I stumble toward the bathroom door
(left open just a crack)
and cast a near-sighted glance
through the curtained window.
What light is this
that peers between
the dark shapes
I know to be trees?
And if it is the moon,
why rising now, and here?
Shouldn't it be off to the left
and higher,
or not there at all?


I shake my head,
return to bed;
doze fitfully,
to rise again at dawn and find
the half-moon, high and glowing now
as if to say, "Like you, I started late,
and yet, you see what height I've reached:
don't give up hope --
you, too, could still ascend...

I shake my head again,
shake out all thoughts
of anything but now;
shake out the was, the could, the should,
and all the might becomes
creating space for is;
watch out the window, waiting
as presence slowly fills
this space beneath the trees,
wrapped in promise,
glowing like the moon.