For the dverse prompt.
In the dark of night with a moon
thin as famine and the black boughs
bending in sorrow at their nakedness,
when the furrowed field is rilled
with silver, churned as a battlefield,
there are the stars,
and beneath,
in the thickets of bramble
and crows nests,
invisible eyes watch my passing
with the patience of stones,
dispassionate as Solomon.
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Jane Dougherty Writes 
You are on the way of sad romance?
No, just the usual, walking in the dark and being aware that I’m being watched 🙂
Oh, there are ghosts around? 😉
Probably. But I look out for signs that the chasseurs haven’t killed absolutely everything.
There will be some,. I am sure, Jane! During the lockdown haunting is going on, in your area?
No, I don’t think we have ghosts in France.
A result of Napoleon? 😉
Descartes 🙂
Thats also possible. As a soldier Descartes has visited our area here. After this he did his wellknown quote.I am sure it came from the impressions he had made here. Lol
That is always a possibility 🙂
😉 After this service he surely became a true Frenchman. :-))
🙂
A moon thin as famine is a wonderful start and then you take us down to those invisible eyes … dark and satisfying
Thank you. Soon they’ll be as hungry as the moon.
I love the moon watching us tonight.
It’s a lovely slender moon.
“a moon thin as famine” is just perfect: sets up the rest of the imagery nicely.
Thank you! It isn’t cold and wintry (yet) but this very new thin moon ought to mean that winter is close.
The way the wind is blowing outside my window right now, something’s close and it’s not summer, lol.
The autumn has had its moments, but we’re in a golden lull, still warm and placid, though it’s misty in the mornings and the nights are cooling.
The golden lull sounds marvelous. Pass it along here, will you? 🙂
It’s even goldener today. I’ll send you a bit 🙂
😀
HI glad to meet another lover of the darkness.
I have to read abit more of your blogg next time i am here.
Yes, I’m fond of being out in the dark when some of the things we scare to death during the day come out.
I hope you will have a nose around 🙂
It’s all about survival, whether it’s heartbreak or the night. Nicely done.
Thank you. Yes, it’s life, and usually life that we don’t know anything about.
That last stanza is a beauty, the poem could of sat easily with the John Bauer painting.💜
Thanks Willow. He was certainly a master at painting dark night scenes.
He certainly was
🙂
Night can be so beautiful. I like the eeriness you bring to it with those invisible eyes.
Thank you 🙂
Very very beautiful…
I’m pleased you like it 🙂
I certainly do!
It’s always gratifying to hear comments like that 🙂
🙂
Thin as famine indeed. This is wonderful work, JD. Dark. Airy.
I esp like the patience of stones. Bella!
Thank you! It’s an atmospheric place at night.
I like the way the darkness lowers into invisibility–all presence. (K)
It’s inhabited by things we can’t see and don’t understand, but they know all about us.
Yes they do.
I look up and saw that thin famished moon. I specially love this part:
invisible eyes watch my passing
with the patience of stones,
It was a beauty of a moon last night. It always takes me by surprise, never seems to rise in the same place two nights running….
Oh, how lovely with a tinge of eeriness.
Thank you! The night is eerie, but perhaps only because we don’t feel in control of it.
Yes, I agree.
🙂
Dispassionate, perhaps, but but still a source of comfort in their presence (still).
I find it a comfort that they’re there at all given what we throw at them on a daily basis.
A lovely poem and a new word. I’d never heard “rill” (rilled) as a verb. A very satisfactory word…
I’m maybe taking lexical liberties, but it ought to be a verb if it isn’t 🙂 Thanks, Judy!
Gotta be able to take lexical liberties. That’s how the language grows.
And who’s going to check? The grammar police?
That description of the eyes: ‘with the patience of stones,/dispassionate as Solomon.’ conveys almost a kind of resignedness to the way we treat them…but I also sense they wouldn’t be too upset if something bad happened to us!
Ha ha! No, they wouldn’t care at all, and many of them would make it their business to tidy our remains off the face of the earth.
Dark moons, like the dawn light help us accept a new cycle is a new beginning. I look forward to your indefatigable industry each day and I admire your optimism.
Thank you! I’m pleased to think you read my poems regularly, and also that you find optimism in them. I have to look hard for it, but it must show somehow 🙂
Your ‘invisible eyes’ gave me a frisson of danger but also excitement, Jane. I love that about night in the countryside, you never know what’s out there, even the stars could be watching. I love the similes ‘a moon thin as famine’ and the furrowed field ‘rilled with silver, churned as a battlefield’.
I love being out after dark when it’s dead silent except for owls, acorns dropping from the trees and pigeons startling out of sleep. I do take a man and a dog and a heavy torch with me though 🙂
I too love being out at night in the silence, I so love how you capture the mood of the dark and the sense of eyes being present beyond seeing.
Thank you. I wonder if we are so wary of darkness because we are unable to see what it hides. It bothers us that there is something we can’t point to and name or chase away.
Yes, I wonder similarly, the human need to control.
As far back as recorded history, we’ve never been able to live in harmony with what is around us.
The future is not going to change that in a hurry, not enough of us to tip the balance, but crisis will force us to make adjustments, though not harmony.
Yes, I think you’re right. Whatever catastrophe we bring about that affects wildlife and the poorest most vulnerable people, the rich will always be one step ahead with some technological advance that will protect the few who can afford it.
Yes, Huxley and Orwell were loud about that fact.