Lichen Glows in the Moonlight

Lichen glows in the moonlight so fierce only cloud blocking the moon brings relief. Then passed by, recharged it leaps up off rocks and suffocates—there is no route through rocks without having to confront its beseeching—it lights the way, not the moon, and outdoes epithets like phosphorescent, fluorescent, or florescent: it smirks and smiles and lifts the corner of its lips in hideous or blissful collusion, and birds pipe an eternal dawn, never knowing when to sleep or wake. They might be tricked into thinking their time’s up, in the spectrum of lichen, its extra-gravital persuasion, its crackling movement remembered as still, indifferent, barely living under the sun, or on a dark night; climbing up you’d escape, but like all great molecular weights it leaves traces you carry with you into the realms of comfort and faith.