Eclipsed Moon With Spica
A few weeks ago, we had a beautiful lunar eclipse visible in North America. It was well worth sitting out to watch the Earth’s shadow advance until the Moon was completely covered and glowing with a warm red hue, then retreat until the Moon shone bright once again. Here is a combination of a poem written for a workshop many years back, inspired by another lunar eclipse, with a few photos from this year’s event. Multitudes of astrophotographers caught fine images of that eclipse. This time, my equipment on hand was my hardy little point-and-shoot Lumix, which yielded many images suitable for artistic manipulation, especially with effects added by the drifting fog that interrupted our clear view. Mars was in view as well, so I’ll include one image with Mars. Can you spot it?
| I watch the Mother walk my night,
spreading her darkness through my shadows. She turns to me as the night turns, and I watch, I gaze, rapt in the music of her light.
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| Wrapped round and full in the stillness of this, my night,
she draws in light and darkness from the sky, and sets them in my hands and at my feet, until the whole land is an image of sky, until I am full, full round and whole, wholly wrapped in the music within my darkness.
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| She waxes as the night wanes, and I gaze, gaze,
until I dream I am a fish which has never before known water, and now, for the first time, breathes … until I dream I am a child who has never known her name, and now, for the first time, dreams …
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| dreams she stands with a woman, a stranger,
in a land which bears an image of sky. The other, the stranger, is silent beside her, while she speaks to the mother as a favored daughter. As she speaks, I give back through my hands the light and darkness which is the sky until the land rests again beneath my shadows, until the child knows me for herself.
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| Even as we greet and join each other,
the Mother steps over the edge of the world. Even as the stars first claim the sky, I breathe the mist of my first morning.
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