We were compelled by the facts
of the night:
first total lunar eclipse
in four hundred years,
last in over a hundred,
to occur on this day--
the winter solstice,
the full moon and the earth
tilted as far as possible
from the sun.
This night,
I promised
I would stay up
in observance
for the first time,
having watched a documentary
on Nova about Stonehenge,
having written about my connection
to the indigenous of the Carribean,
wanting to feel connected again
through the path of moon through sky,
north and south and west again,
slight penumbral darkening.
I leaned my head
against the glass,
the cold from outside,
as earth's shadow edged
incrementally
between sun and moon,
determined at the moment
of total eclipse to stand
between the sun behind me
and the moon in front
drawing whatever power
my ancestors had
over this event,
this perfect alignment,
assuming the rightness of the moment,
the direction given,
the path ahead.
In mid morning,
the sky dark,
the moon reddened,
finally,
I watched it pass
behind cloud cover,
head pressed against glass
looking further out,
the moon nearly lost
to the west,
dull red, gauzy moon,
and made my way
bed ways
hope in the
fading moon,
red behind the clouds
until dawn.
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