Member Poem

The English language derives no words

from the Latin imber.

If you look at the moon as it nears full,

when the sun sets and flashes between

pine trees, on a day after storms that

flood the sidewalks with clay

and leaves the air stretched from

horizon to horizon, a little anxious with clarity,

you will notice that oxygen tints the

basalt seas the color of thunderclouds.

After some inspection, perhaps as you watch the

lunar surface glisten between

bare branches, like

something precious washed in torrents

and left to dry between rusted growth, too

alive to be metal,

you may locate the Mare Imbrium.

It is true.

There are no English derivatives,

but the original remains in our sky,

untouched by time or rain.