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It gets harder and harder these days
to see the rabbit in the moon,
maybe it's the bifocals, crazy-lined
white-man's looking aids that right
at the dividing line tend to send everything
askew, shattered into two worlds, close or far,
blurry or distinct, tilt your head, it changes,
but only the line remains.
Then again, maybe it's that damned street lamp
wallowing in the night right across the street,
I hold my hand in front of my eyes, blocking out
that yellowed globe, as though it were an alien sun
while clean white moonlight cuts across the grass
of the neighbor's four-squared Army lawn, the
glow stealthily overtaking all until the precise right angles,
ambushed, yield to natural patterns of light and dark
overhead, three lines against the sky. I wait, the shifting
light turns them into not alternate realities, but truth,
and above, flying high above two power lines,
I see one free-floating white cloud, ragged-feather
war-bonnet set against an onyx-blue sky.
Grinning at rabbit, trickster-teacher,
I say wanishi, hoping like hell that future
generations won't think the rabbit in the moon
is only Bugs, or some other old looney tune.
