A Gray Veil: Eclipse, Total, Lunar

A Gray Veil: Eclipse, Total,

Lunar

 

I have been able to hear a shadow,

And even perceived by ear

The passage of a cloud across

The sun . . .

 

                                Mary Joe Salter

                                Alternating Currents

 

Behind. And the pines rising

High and higher still

Up the incline to the only clearing

 

Descending into the goose pond.

The moon is in

Eclipse.  She is falling while

 

A gray veil is being drawn

Across her face, the way

A drape is drawn across the dead, soft

 

Hovering, almost not touching.  

What's beneath it gone.

Or the appearance of gone.

But not 

Some magician’s trick.  Simply

Shadow and the agreement

 

Among all the bodies that come

Between her and the full

Simplicity of her face. 

 

It will be another hour of her

Muted illumination.  The drawn

Cloth is being

 

Drawn yet.  Before it’s done

She’ll have set

Below the tree line,

 

Below the mountain

Shy if you’d like, coy if you’d

Rather, the cantilevered

 

Agreement already calibrated,

Anciently, when she was

Grit in the mouth of this galaxy

 

Nacre and ooze moving

Like sibling tongues: the hurt

Of wound and beauty

 

Shaped and continuously

Lathed: gouged, parted,

Skewed, and polished.