How to Build a Moon Garden When the News Is All Horror
To see where the moon melts over the garden,
or where the bats flit, or where the air sweetens
with pollen and moth-frenzy, I recommend
a night walk to discern the perfect patch for it.
Under this glow, we could all use a distraction—
dig with a silver shovel and choose colors that swoon
and moan under our satellite: dusty pinks,
baby blue, lavender, white, and butter yellow gems
unfurl at dusk until dawn. Sometimes moonflower
vining over trellis looks like a waterfall
out of the corner of your eye. So many to choose from:
evening primrose, night-blooming jasmine, heliotrope,
tuberose, 4 o’clocks, lambs’ ear, astilbe, calla lily, white clematis,
fairy candles, periwinkles, and you can even launch snowballs
in summer with creamy oak hydrangeas. Turn off the hiss
and whirr from man-made lights and walk the night,
walk the grass, the fence line, let your boot crackle over
pebble and stick bits. Careful if skunks shuffle over to see what
all the fuss is about. Don’t tussle with weeds. If you set
your shovel down, skunks won’t bother you at all.
And on the off chance they do, at least the spray might
sizzle like stars. Bats swoop and fly erratic, but birds
glide between wing flap—that’s how you can tell what
flutters across a lake moon. If you make a moon garden,
even the dark lapping of water under a duck-shush of wave
won’t be louder than the silver in your own bright yard.
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