Marguerite Zorach

THE MOON rose:

She spread a circle of fire on the waters,

She drew a path of golden fire across the ocean

Straight to us, sitting idly on the balcony after supper.

She waited.

We looked too long upon the shining path:

We arose and went down to the sea;

We dropped our dark earth-skins upon the sands,

And stood up white with edges of fire.

The moon laid a blazing finger on our bodies,

And drew us into the dark waters.

Each gleaming ripple touched our bodies, left its gold on them,

And returned black to the black water;

Until we lay in the circle of fire,

Until we swayed in the arms of the moon.

The black waves reached for us—

She lifted us gently.

The waves broke into points of fire against our bodies

And fell back—

She sang to us, rocking,

“Sleep, sleep!”

But all the fire of the moon-path was in our bodies—

We could not sleep.

We leapt from the arms of the moon,

We raced through the black waters

Scattering showers of sparks.

Our bodies were transparent with edges of fire—

The sea was black before us.

We had become strangely thin,

Our dark earth-skins fitted us ill.

And when we looked,

The moon-path lay behind us across the ocean—

We had dropped it in our haste.