Advice to a Moon Child

I am looking through Negative Capability journals of yesteryear and though that some of the poems should be reprinted here.  This poem is from the late Vivian Smallwood of Chickasaw, Alabama.  We used to think of her as Alabama's Emily Dickinson. Negative Capability Press was fortunate enough to publish her book: And Finding No Mouse There.

Advice To A Moon Child

Vivian Smallwood

Listen, little Moon-child, never trust a stranger.
Never take a walk with one beside the dusty seas.
Once there was a stranger came plunging down the sky-road
All wrapped about with earth-shine, and handsome as you please.
I should have fled before him to the shelter of the mountains.
I should have ducked behind a rock or burrowed in the sand,
But I watched him from the shadows, then I crept into the sunlight,
and he crossed the plain to meet me and took me by the hand.
Lonely, blue-eyed love-child, never kiss a stranger.
Once I kissed a stranger who had fallen from the sky.
And now I watch the earth rise above the bleak horizon
And know he will not come again. I know that earth-men lie.