The Man in the Moon

Billy Collins

Listen

He used to frighten me in the nights of childhood,
the wide adult face, enormous, stern, aloft.
I could not imagine such loneliness, such coldness.

But tonight as I drive home over these hilly roads
I see him sinking behind stands of winter trees
and rising again to show his familiar face.

And when he comes into full view over open fields
he looks like a young man who has fallen in love
with the dark earth,

a pale bachelor, well-groomed and full of melancholy,
his round mouth open
as if he had just broken into song.

And while we’re about it, we might as well do some more Collins. This one’s simplicity itself, but if you’ve ever driven down a dark highway and watched a yellow full moon rise up on your left, you know exactly what Collins is talking about.

[falstaff]

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