The Man Who Burnt The Barn To See The Moon Poem by James Whitworth

The man who burnt the barn to see the moon
Did so, only that he might see you.

In the kindling of the star-christened sky,
Breaching the depths of constant-crouching night,
He finds the fixéd point from which you fall;
The origin of your orphaned light.

Bearing as a ghost between the graves,
He watches for your ritualistic birth;
A dark genesis that melts before the eyes
Of one whom for you chose to rid his earth

Of dust-boned sinners that fear none
But the dictators of the blowing wind,
And laugh in unknown error at the man
Who before the roaring sun rescinds

His hold upon his natural evolution;
Collects the coppers of his day’s renounce;
Safely sleeps between those sundered ships,
To whisper close the ear and thus announce:

As the man who burnt the barn to see the moon,
I did so, only that I might see you.