Supermoon Eclipse

A strange ritual we enact, my wife and I,

A rite not to be repeated for eighteen years,

And not having been done

Since the early days of our lives

In 1982, to be precise:

Driving around the countryside,

Looking, and praying,

If praying is the right word,

For clouds to dissolve and disappear

So we can watch the moon disappear,

Turned red and eaten away

By our own shadow,

Projected two hundred and fifty thousand miles

Through vacuous space and Van Allen belts

To swallow the reflected lunar light

In its darkness.

The clouds that cover the moon

Disperse in time for us to see

The moon re-covered by our own earthly image.

We watch it a while,

And then drive home,

Through streets crowded with fellow watchers –

Neighbors who never have known each other

Until this night,

When a shadow draws us together.