The Night so Bright a Squirrel Reads

The night so bright a squirrel reads
a novel on his branch
without clicking on his lamp.
You know you’re in a forest—the stars,
the moon blaring
off the white birch … You could walk
out with your wife
into the forest, towards the fields beyond,
you could walk apart from her,
and still see her. It’s so bright
you need not talk nor fear
that particular sticky abrasion gotten
by walking into pine trees … You find
a lucidity in this darkness.
Your wife is here—three or four
trees away-you recognize her profile,
and you do not think she is anyone else,
here with you, a hundred
or so yards now from a field where,
in an hour or so, you might see
dawn’s first deer browsing, or an owl,
soaring home after the shift he loves,
a fat sack of field mice under his wing.