HE, TO HIS WIFE

I Love You

a poem by Paul Corrigan from his book At the Grave of the Unknown River Driver

“Sit with me here on the landing

and watch how the moon hangs

like some pale winter fruit

in the branches of our crab apple tree.

I noticed it last night, but you

had gone to bed. And since last night

the moon has ripened and is full

and looks ready to plummet off the tree

and drop below the horizon.

Sit down here beside me.

It’s not something we’ll see

every month. The leaves will hide it,

or the clouds. One of us will be away,

or we’ll both be asleep and it will rise

and hang there in the branches without us.

How odd not to have noticed it before now;

to have lived in this house a year

and not had a cloudless night when the leaves

were down and the moon was waxing.

How soon will it be before clear weather

again reveals it in its brightest phase

hanging in those bare limbs?

We ought to watch the skies more faithfully

and try to be here on these stairs

to catch the next conjunction

of the moon in our tree.

Sit with me in the dark a while.”

ART: Adams, A. (1933) Trees with Snow on Branches, "Half Dome, Apple Orchard, Yosemite," California by Ansel Adams.

United States of America California, 1933. [Place of Publication Not Identified: Publisher Not Identified, -04] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669746/.