Crescent moon

Hail to thee, silver crescent in the sky.

Tell me what you think you are.

Are you the universal sickle --

whetstoned symbol of seasonal harvest,

a harbinger of hope 

that reaps the plainest grains,

to feed the famined millions?

Are you the sword of Damocles, 

doom slung by a single silken thread 

above the bowed necks

of mindless drones devoted 

to their own deluded interests?

Or are you the scimitar of Saladin, 

white-hot steel tempered in the algebra of zero, 

scything a swath of unconditional submission

wherever you find deserts of despair? 

The sands below you whisper a sibilant song

that none but prophets hear --

words of wisdom metered by the  migration

of shifting dunes, surfing grain by grain

towards an unknown destination.

I would be a prophet too. 

Speak, O shining shard of wisdom.

Jim Taylor, December 2018