Beneath its angry peering orange light,
The sprawling noisome city in the night
Reflects upon a setting quarter moon
Her shrouded secret-veiling wisps of spume.

There plays out on this otherworldy stage
A fable tale plain made for any age:
There are two planes of interpassing cloud
The dark, the light thereon presented proud.

The dark at most obscure the moon complete,
Less dense are dancers’ masks, deception sweet;
The mackerel bank at verge a clear seen bound,
No smirch upon her face its line beyond.

The light alone’s thin veil hides not her face
Aglow with stolen yellow of Sun’s grace,
But when the dark appear even and sparse
Its lining silver shines in filigree bars.

For us below, moons set and rise again;
Towards the set of our long day of pain
No ache without remembering joyful love,
The dark and light together ever thought of.