Days before the lame-duck hermit left, the trees
withdrew into their caverned carapace of bark.
The clouds gazed down aloofly, shrugged,
the moon shucked off its cryptic gleams,
the rains were only rains again, not drops of manna.

When a play’s run ends, the stage hands
cart away the painted fronts, the rented furniture.
The actors strip off their makeup,
trade their costumes for a sweatshirt and jeans,
exit the stage door, hail a cab home.

So too the hermit returned in the end
to the sooty city. But when he rubbed
the soot from his eyes,
a veil of self-pity had wondrously lifted,
and the skyline gleamed like a cryptic moon.