Moonsand

An angel asks:
"Can I just once
for just one moment
take a lifelong
leave of absence
from heaven's revelry?
I would so much like to be
a poor human creature
serenading the moon!"

The moon doesn't much care
for nighttime strollers
who occasionally bow in homage.
Moon-dreamers, however,
enjoy its full devotion.
It outdoes itself
in sweetness and silver.
The moon is always willing
to play and frolic
with moon-dreamers.
It likes to practice
its magic with them,
it makes monuments sneeze,
turns stones into liquid,
uses snowmen as fuel.

The moon dreams
of flowing songs.
The moon dreams
of infinity,
of silver plumage of light
and welling solitude.
The moon is a flower,
it grows into us.
And our poor reliquary
becomes a sanctuary.

An antimoon
in a high hat and patent-leather shoes
leaps out of formlessness
and announces
that the moon is nothing
but glittering dross.

A customer orders
an empty moon
in an empty cosmos,
a dish
of air, stairs, and lairs
and illusion
in profusion.

A moon dreams
about luminous moons,
surrounded by luminous lamps of silk
the size of a moon.

The start of this moon
is a feathery cloud.
The end of this moon
is a very fragile
little tail of glass.
Laughing stones drift in between,
continents that wonder
whether they resemble silver song.
Glittering kingdoms of pearl
meet black-feathered day.
But that's not all.

A white moon-thunder with many wrinkles
grants one wrinkle to the cloud-bell.
Something like a duel of moon-dreamers
sacredly takes place.
Who knows who tries
to cast demonic shadows.
A moon-mustache?
A moon-navel?
A temple of blossoms wags its braid.

A moon of blood.
A moon of snow.
A moon that pretends
to be motionless
but unexpectedly and in a twinkling
drops into the bottomless depth
before a moon-dreamer's very eyes
and in the very same instant
looms back into view
behind the moon-dreamer
mutely wildly silverly smiling.

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