Tonight the Salome moon
throws off her seven cloud veils -
small, full and high in the east,
she lights her half of the sky
with soft blue and softer grey,
while in the west
Darkness touches his toes,
bows down to me or the moon.
Down on the shore,
an egret, motionless, abiding,
suddenly opens his wide wings,
flies moonwards,
white as the fleece
from which Gideon wrung a bowl of dew,
white as the robe slipping
from the shoulders of Bathsheba.