Dave Lucas’s first book, Weather, appears this week in the VQR Poetry Series. We celebrate with his poems from both issues of Little Star. First:
Lunar Calendar
Wolf Moon
The snow spreads like an opened hand,
like their bay echoing over the rime fields.
Hunger Moon
A night without sleep: stars wheel the sky.
An empty stomach is February cold.
Worm Moon
The earth softens, a forgiving heart.
The earthworm emerges, and the robin soon.
Pink Moon
Moss pink, ground phlox. A rose
by any name could not be sweeter.
Hare Moon
Now the flowers in full unison,
now the hare like light across their petals.
Strawberry Moon
The berry’s sweet, short season:
gather ye flowers, and so and so.
Buck Moon
His antlers push through, velvet and bone.
All majesty is birthed in pain.
Sturgeon Moon
In haze and halo, by its reddish hint
let our lines snap tight, grow heavy.
Harvest Moon
Late lantern, and by its light a glut:
beans, rice, corn, pumpkin, squash.
Hunter’s Moon
The leaves fall and fallen, the deer fattened.
The cold causes the arrow to sing.
