Lunar Eclipse - Diane Scantlebury

There you were resplendent
In the middle of a star freckled dark sky,
The blood orange moon
We’d all been excitedly waiting for,
Not so much red, but brown,
As if a muddy thumb
Had smudged you,
I craned my neck
To get a better view,
Under the half closed blind
Of the bathroom window
And then wondered,
How many more sleep encrusted eyes
Were upwardly gazing
In those early, pre dawn hours?
Just to catch a glimpse of you
Before you vanished,
Never to be seen
For another eighteen years.

Diane Scantlebury

Waning Moon - Diane Scantlebury

My mind was distracted by the waning moon,
As encompassed in your arms I lay,
The dawn had come all too soon,
To sweep the shadow of earth’s eclipse away,

By chance I caught a glimpse of that moon,
Fading fast from the sky as I struggled out of sleep,
While chinks of sparkling light danced around the room,
And into the dusty, dark corners tried to seep,

Pressed against the pillow your face reminded me of that waning moon,
Marooned high in the sky of increasing blue,
A pale candescence illuminating the gloom,
Softly arousing the new day with its radiant hue.

Diane Scantlebury