Raccoons and Skeleton

Some of us have work to do.
The rest of you, keep sleeping.
Imagine the night-side world
Entirely apart from sun

Other than what’s reflected
Back from the moon and planets,
Other than what’s extracted
To burn in homes and street lamps,

The living phosphorescence
Upwelling from the wet depths—
Imagine every night since
This planet started spinning

Subtracted from all the days,
What a different world that makes.
A greenish skeleton glows,
Life-sized, hanged for the season

From an ornamental plum,
Releasing faint energies
It absorbed during daylight.
Two raccoons traverse the lawn.