Manly Hearts and Banshee’s Croons*
Moon rising, full
Flashing pikes, a thousand
Singing river, a mass of men
Mud-walled cabins, eyes watching
Every foe and traitor, death
For freedom, hoorah
Moon rising, full
*based upon the Irish song of rebellion, “The Rising of the Moon”
I have waited all day for the full moon
To rise, to see the promised penumbra.
I have checked my Star Walk app, eager for
The bright orb to rise above the Blue Ridge.
I have watched, too, the thickening clouds pile.
Sky Walk says the eclipse has started but
My eyes have no proof, empirical or
Otherwise. Once I see it, will it be
In shadow? No devouring beast taking
Bites. Will it be blood red like the others
I’ve seen? Once I watched through a telescope.
That moon wasn’t a full snow moon, instead
A gibbous one, an easy mistake. Blood
Red and I understood why ancestors
Cowered in fear. Blood on the moon. Surely
A moonwalker cut himself there but no,
That came back to earth trapped in a space suit.
I have waited patiently to see this
Astronomical marvel, and thinning
Clouds promise what to my wondering eyes
Should appear but a four point five billion
Year old extraterrestrial. The same
One gazed on by Lucy and some long dead
Neanderthal whose DNA rides in
My viscera. Maybe that’s why I can’t
Look away from that shared experience
Across millennia. I’m still waiting.
I have waited all day for the full moon.
clouds like the red sea
parted
penumbral eclipse sighted
A writer friend of mine, poet Jeff Schwaner, came up with the great idea of celebrating October’s full moon. We’ve had a bunch of super moons this year and an eclipse yesterday, and, besides, the moon has inspired a lot of poetry, good and bad, over the years. Why not come together and have a Full Moon Poetry Party?
Now, I’m not a poet–though I am taking an eight-week poetry class–but I decided to give it a try.
Web of Fate
I have stared at the Moon a thousand times
Or more.
In a line that goes back to the African woman,
Our mother,
I stand with everyone who has gone before and
Will come.
In my life the moon changed, bearing the footprints
Of men.
The names of all its deities are female, from Aega
To Zirna;
Yet, no woman’s feet have disturbed that smooth
Ancient dust.
And even now we still say we gaze upon the Man in
The moon.
How lonely he must be. Did he leave Gaia behind
On Earth
When Theia struck and buried its iron in Earth’s core
And hurtled
Molten rock into space to form what we look on now?
The Moon.
unexpectedpaths.com 