Eclipse and epilogue.

The forecasts had it right--I murmured,
not about the rain, as yet, but clouds
were gathering fast, obscuring May's full moon,
so that its light, still visible, filtered through
into a patch of fretted luminescence.
The dogs, their necessary function now fulfilled
over the tree line, were sent to bed,
as was I, almost, when impulse pulled a sweater
back across my head and drove me out again
to the front lawn re-examining the disappointing mirk;
there to catch, sailing clear beyond a ragged gap,
Luna herself--night's queen--serene as always,
but absent here a shadowed, semi-circle slice
which, even as I watched, grew wider.

Still later, through four panes of glass--
binoculars plus bedroom double-glaze--
I watched, a child entranced,
till there was nothing left to watch.

My pillowed head--at last--
reflecting on this lingering death,
glimpsed my own waning days and nights,
at sixty eight and more locked tight
within a similar diminishing toward dark.
Until rising one last time I caught
the faintest mark of ancient echoed hope,
a silver glow, the slivered yet refulgent brink
of light's insistent, sure return.