Eclipse

I couldn’t tell you the numbered times I’ve seen
the moon’s arc, its flat medallion a traced
path across the canopy sky, its face
in two dimensions, like a spot-light beam;
or the thoughtless times I’ve assumed its scheme
of things was merely a bright plate that effaced
the stars, a celestial disk too long encased
in the time-weary lines of a lover’s theme.
But one still night, when the earth’s shadow licked
away the moon’s full milk-veneer, I stood
on the dark deck, and through a reddish trick
of light, it seemed a suspended world I could
almost touch, suddenly a solid place,
a sphere that hung in the deep room of space.

 (From Wire Song, Conundrum Press, 2001.)