Owen Stroud

we only get so many full moons
so many summer nights
and skips around the sun
we only see so many full moons
Lord forgive me if I miss a single one

I’ve seen it hanging butter-gold above a still midsummer town
air so thick you could slice it and the bullfrogs singin’ out
sacred was the darkness, and hope hung in the air
and poems were brimming in my heart for the girl who was not there
and the world it lay suspended neath the moon’s all-seein’ eye
while the orange gleams & LEDs specked the streets with lesser lights
but I was stock-still in my tracks, loath to take another step
as if one muscle’s twitch would shorten
the sweet time that I had left, singin’

we only get so many full moons
so many summer nights
and skips around the sun
we only see so many full moons
Lord forgive me if I miss a single one

last night I meandered through New Braunfels as it slept
hung a right turn toward Seguin, then passed ol’ Freiheit on the left
lookin’ for some barren pasture where I could discreetly park
and sit for hours playing soft little flickerin’ notes on my guitar
beyond the power plants and landfills and sterile tracts of starter homes
I switched the headlights off and drifted
down the last few remaining country roads
and I could see that lil airport beacon spinning steady as a top
and all them distant radio towers blinking faintly on and off
and those sprawling adolescent towns marked out the limits of the sky
ah but not right here, it’s only purest silver beams that bless my eyes
the stars hung breathless in the heavens, gazing fondly at the moon
they heard the night breeze through the cornfields
they heard me whispering this tune, I was singin’

we only get so many full moons
so many summer nights
and skips around the sun
we only see so many full moons
Lord forgive me if I miss a single one